The remaining four members of Documenta’s Finding Committee have all resigned as of yesterday evening, November 16, per a statement from the exhibition’s administration.
Simon Njami, Gong Yan, Kathrin Rhomberg, and María Inés Rodríguez announced their decision to step down in a public resignation letter first published in e-flux. Tasked with selecting the artistic director for the 2027 edition of the exhibition, the team of six shrank earlier this week when Mumbai-based writer and curator Ranjit Hoskoté resigned after being criticized by the German media and the nation’s culture minister for “anti-semitic” sentiments over a petition signature from 2019. A few days prior, Israeli artist Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger resigned.
Njami, Yan, Rhomberg and Rodríguez wrote : “The dynamics of the last few days, with their unchallenged media and public discrediting of our colleague Ranjit Hoskote, which forced him to resign from the Finding Committee, make us very doubtful if this prerequisite for any coming edition of Documenta is currently given in Germany. In the current circumstances we do not believe that there is a space in Germany for an open exchange of ideas and the development of complex and nuanced artistic approaches that documenta artists and curators deserve.”