Germany’s federal chancellor has pulled out of a visit to a major contemporary art show in the city of Kassel in protest at the presence of crudely antisemitic images in a mural that was on display earlier this week.
A spokesperson for Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed on Thursday that the German leader had canceled a planned visit to the Documenta festival, which is staged in Kassel every five years. This year’s edition opened last weekend amid a storm of controversy over the support of its curators — an Indonesian artists’ collective called Ruangrupa — for the movement targeting the State of Israel with a comprehensive cultural and economic boycott.
