Velvet Voice Club • TEXTE ZUR KUNST

A panel with journalist Peter Laudenbach, artist Cesy Leonard and Léontine Meijer-van Mensch, director of the Grassi Museums für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig.

Moderation: Antonia Kölbl und Anna Sinofzik
Language: German

With the rise of right-wing forces in Europe and the US, cultural institutions have come under increasing pressure from such political groups, which see state-funded museums, theaters, and memorial sites as a powerful battlefield in their cultural war against a progressive society. Symptomatic of this development, the aggressive attacks on cultural institutions through anonymous hate mail, bomb scares, and death threats continue to increase. One example of the effects of cultural repression that outraged cultural workers worldwide is the resignation of the longtime museum director Manuel Borja-Villel. He was accused by the right-wing press, among others, of pursuing a “monolithic ideological discourse” with his decolonial collection presentation at the Museo Reina Sofía. Less attention is being paid to the almost daily attacks on smaller, local cultural institutions, which are particularly dependent on public funding and support.

For its June edition, the Velvet Voice Club takes up and continues the title theme of the current issue of TEXTE ZUR KUNST: “Ohnmacht,” a German term (medically: syncope, or fainting; literally: without-power) that combines the perceived inability to act with a residual agency. The event addresses the question of the extent to which cultural institutions can use feelings of powerlessness generated by these political developments as an impetus for their own empowerment. What responses are most effective in responding to violent right-wing groups and political harassment at both the municipal and regional levels? And how can an inclusive, socially engaged cultural policy be realized despite these adversities?