Bracha L. Ettinger about Documenta 16 and her exit

Bracha L. Ettinger breaks her silence. For the first time, the renowned Israeli artist speaks publicly about why she left the Documenta 16 search committee. Anyone who sees her art and knows her life story understands that she couldn’t do anything else.

bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger got the first ball rolling with her withdrawal from the Documenta 16 search committee. Today, barely two weeks later, no one knows what forces will unfold in the face of the world’s most famous show for contemporary art. Documenta has a firm grip on world political events. As is well known, the entire commission that has been working to put Documenta 2027 on a new foundation since the anti-Semitism scandal last year has now resigned. This also makes it questionable whether the show can even take place in four years as planned.
The fact that Bracha L. Ettinger is no longer taking part in this process is by no means a reaction to the misery in Kassel from the previous year. And also not the answer to the recently announced BDS call by her commission colleague, the Indian curator Ranjit Hoskoté. Rather, Ettinger had already contacted Kassel shortly after October 7th with a request to slow down the process because of the new situation in the Middle East. The Israeli woman fell on deaf ears.

Pause, mourn

Managing director Andreas Hoffmann told her that this was not possible for organizational reasons. The bitter point is that just a week later the entire process, which could not be slowed down in the face of an outbreak of war, has now come to a complete standstill.