Demonstrators protesting the inclusion of antisemitic artworks at the Documenta festival in Kassel, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Swen Pförtner/dpa

Germany’s Jewish community has reacted angrily to the announcement that two members of the Indonesian artists collective responsible for curating this year’s Documenta art festival — widely criticized for the display of antisemitic images in several works shown — have been appointed as visiting professors at one of the country’s leading art schools.

Reza Afisina, a cinematographer, and Iswanto Hartono, an architect, were introduced on Wednesday as guest members of the faculty at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HfbK). Both artists, whose work is heavily political, have long been involved with ruangrupa, a group of Indonesian artists selected to curate the fifteenth edition of the Documenta festival, one of the world’s main showcases for contemporary art, in the city of Kassel.

Both positions are being financed by the DAAD, Germany’s state-funded institution for academic exchanges.

The show was plagued by scandals related to antisemitism six months before it opened, as revelations emerged of ruangrupa’s support for the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) campaign which seeks the total economic and cultural isolation of the State of Israel as the first step towards its eventual elimination.

After the show opened at the beginning of the summer, visitors discovered works that featured a mural containing classic antisemitic caricatures, a triptych featuring a man wearing a kipah proffering large bags of money and a brochure containing antisemitic drawings of Israeli soldiers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled a visit to the festival in protest at the presence of antisemitic works, while the festival’s director, Sabine Schormann, tendered her resignation in July amid condemnation from German politicians and Jewish leaders over the festival’s apparent indifference to the presence of antisemitic imagery.

For its part, ruangrupa strongly rejected the accusation that it was fueling antisemitism, declaring in a statement published last month that “in the context of Documenta fifteen and the specificities of the German context, we see that the targeting of Palestinian artists is the point at which our anti-colonial struggles meet, and have become a focal point for attack.”

The appointment of Afisina and Hartono to positions at the HfbK drew a furious response from the head of the Jewish community in Hamburg.

“I cannot understand this at all,” Michael Fürst, the community’s chairperson, told broadcaster NDR. “Anyone who has proven that, after several months at the Documenta, they do not want to abandon their antisemitic ideas has no place at a public university in Germany.”

The decision was also condemned by Katharina Fegebank, Hamburg’s deputy mayor and the city’s senator for science. “The allegations of antisemitism at the Documenta fifteen weigh heavily,” she said, adding that Afisina and Hartono “have a responsibility to clarify these allegations.”

While Fegebank acknowledged that “Hamburg’s universities are autonomous in appointing their guest professorships, this is covered by academic freedom,” she stressed that “academic freedom must never be a license for antisemitic ideas.”

Volker Beck, the head of the Germany-Israel Friendship Society, mused on Twitter that hatred of Israel is “career-enhancing.”

However, the criticism was firmly rejected by Martin Köttering, the president of the HfbK, who pointed out that the college’s applications to DAAD were filed in January, several months before the show opened.

“We stand by this decision and want to implement this DAAD professorship, especially to take up and continue the artistic questions of the Documenta fifteen in a different format and in a different framework, with students and teachers, and with the two Documenta curators,” Köttering told NDR.