e-flux Notes is for timely interventions on issues of contemporary concern, ranging over art, politics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and culture.

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        September 13, 2024
        By Solveig Font, Coco Fusco, Celia Irina González, Hamlet Lavastida, Julio Llópiz Casal, and Yanelys Nuñez Leyva
        September 4, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        August 15, 2024
        By Sophie Lewis
        August 13, 2024

        We write you this public letter as professionals working in museums, arts organisations and universities, as well as supporters of Slovak art and culture. We urge you to reconsider your decision to dismiss the Director General (DG) of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG), Alexandra Kusá, following the dismissal of the Director of the Slovak National Theatre, Matej Drlička. This decision has undermined the independence of the cultural field in your country and damaged the trust in and reputation of Slovak culture internationally. 

        August 9, 2024
        By Naeem Mohaiemen
        July 31, 2024
        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        July 26, 2024
        By Slavoj Žižek
        July 24, 2024
        By David Lapoujade
        July 18, 2024
        By Alexi Kukuljevic
        June 28, 2024
        By Ilya Budraitskis
        June 21, 2024
        By Xin Wang
        June 18, 2024
        By Alenka Zupančič
        June 7, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        May 31, 2024
        By Kerstin Stakemeier
        May 24, 2024
        By Miri Davidson
        May 17, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        May 14, 2024
        By Jacques Rancière
        May 3, 2024
        By Andreas Petrossiants
        April 29, 2024
        By Canada Choate
        April 24, 2024
        By Pietro Bianchi
        April 19, 2024

        It is an honor to be nominated for the DAAD Artist residency, organized by the German Academic Exchange Service of which you are the director. Unfortunately, I must reject this nomination for several reasons.

        By Jonas Staal
        April 17, 2024
        By Ted Chiang and Agnieszka Kurant
        April 12, 2024
        By Nathan Brown
        April 3, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        March 29, 2024
        By Jason Read
        March 27, 2024
        By Hide and Seek Audiovisual Art
        March 21, 2024
        By Dominique Routhier and Benjamin Crais
        March 15, 2024
        By Alberto Toscano and Evan Calder Williams
        March 13, 2024
        By Ben Ware
        March 7, 2024
        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        March 5, 2024
        By Jamila Squire and Seth Wheeler
        February 28, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        February 21, 2024
        By Isadora Neves Marques
        February 14, 2024
        By Oxana Timofeeva
        February 9, 2024
        By Anna Kornbluh
        February 5, 2024
        By Boris Groys
        January 31, 2024
        By Jose Rosales
        January 25, 2024
        By Artemy Magun
        January 23, 2024
        By Pietro Bianchi
        January 17, 2024
        By Oxana Timofeeva
        January 11, 2024
        By Jason Read
        January 8, 2024

        We—Berlin-based cultural producers of various disciplines—protest: For the preservation of the freedom of art and the freedom of expression. Against the compulsory commitment to the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism as a prerequisite for cultural funding from the federal state of Berlin. Against the political instrumentalization of antisemitism clauses.

        December 21, 2023
        By Christoph Menke
        December 19, 2023
        By Hans Ulrich Obrist
        December 15, 2023
        By Boris Groys
        December 13, 2023
        By Zdenka Badovinac
        December 7, 2023
        By Nathan Brown
        November 23, 2023

        Documenta has been the reference of the art world for decades, marking the spirit of our times. However, today, Documenta is more of a symptom of a plagued Europe than anything else.

        By Manuel J. Borja-Villel and Vasıf Kortun
        November 21, 2023
        By Charles Tonderai Mudede
        November 16, 2023

        We, the remaining members of the Finding Committee after the recent resignations of our esteemed colleagues Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger and Ranjit Hoskoté, announce hereafter our collective resignation from this honorable task. Be assured that we have not taken this step lightly and that we do so with a very heavy heart. 

        By Simon Njami, Gong Yan, Kathrin Rhomberg, and María Inés Rodríguez
        November 15, 2023

        I hereby formally resign from the Finding Committee of Documenta 16, and hope and wish that you will choose together the best candidate for Documenta 16 Artistic Director. Recently in two emails to all of you, I asked that we slow down the process. The art world as we imagined it has collapsed and is now fragmented, I wrote, and added: What can art bring to our dark ages? The question of the meaning of being human is tightly related to the meaning of art. Artists are not here to decorate politics. Art’s function is not to aestheticize political ideas (W. Benjamin).

        By Bracha L. Ettinger
        November 13, 2023

        These last few days have been among the most deeply distressing days of my life. The monstrous charge of anti-Semitism has been brought against my name in Germany, a country I have regarded with love and admiration, and to whose cultural institutions and intellectual life I have contributed for several decades, as a writer, curator, and cultural theorist … I have been written about with harshness and condescension, and none of my detractors has thought it important to ask me for my point of view. I feel, strongly, that I have been subjected to the proceedings of a kangaroo court.

        By Ranjit Hoskoté
        November 7, 2023
        By Boris Groys
        November 2, 2023
        By Eli Zaretsky
        October 31, 2023
        By Alenka Zupančič
        October 23, 2023
        By Pietro Bianchi
        October 19, 2023

        We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes. 

        October 10, 2023
        By Mladen Dolar
        September 26, 2023
        By Boris Groys
        September 20, 2023
        By Sajjad Abbas, Ali Eyal, Sarah Munaf, Rijin Sahakian, and Bassim Al Shaker
        September 14, 2023
        By Devika Girish, Pooja Rangan, Lakshmi Padmanabhan, Sharlene Bamboat, and Miryam Charles
        September 12, 2023
        By Ted Chiang
        September 6, 2023
        By Tyler Coburn
        August 31, 2023
        By Gabriel Tupinambá
        August 29, 2023
        By Ingo Arend
        August 22, 2023
        By George MacBeth
        August 8, 2023
        By Giovanni Aloi and Michael Marder
        July 14, 2023
        By Ray Brassier
        July 11, 2023
        By Alice dos Reis
        June 26, 2023
        By Alison Nguyen and Min Sun Jeon
        June 21, 2023
        By Boris Groys and Andrei Arkhangelsky
        June 12, 2023
        By Gabriel Tupinambá
        June 8, 2023
        By Enzo Traverso and Ilya Budraitskis
        May 26, 2023
        By Irina Zherebkina
        May 3, 2023
        By Annett Busch and Louis Henderson
        April 27, 2023
        By Irina Zherebkina
        April 18, 2023
        By Dominiek Hoens
        April 6, 2023
        By Xenia Benivolski
        March 31, 2023
        By Keti Chukhrov
        March 29, 2023
        By Patricia Gherovici
        March 22, 2023
        By Masao Matsuda
        March 14, 2023
        By Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri
        March 10, 2023
        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        March 7, 2023
        By Agnieszka Polska
        March 3, 2023
        By Gregory Sholette and Todd Ayoung
        February 24, 2023
        By Pietro Bianchi
        February 17, 2023
        By José-Carlos Mariátegui
        February 15, 2023
        By Lukas Brasiskis, Olexii Kuchanskyi, and Elena Vogman
        February 2, 2023
        By Michael Marder
        January 31, 2023
        By Jean-Marie Straub
        January 24, 2023
        By Danièle Huillet
        January 17, 2023
        By Serge Daney
        December 22, 2022
        By Boris Groys and Sergei Bondarenko
        December 16, 2022
        By Alenka Zupančič
        December 13, 2022
        By Charles Tonderai Mudede
        December 6, 2022
        By Anne Bessette and Juliette Bessette
        November 28, 2022
        By Guy Debord
        November 21, 2022
        By Furqat Palvan-Zade
        November 18, 2022
        By Sergio Benvenuto
        November 16, 2022
        By Furqat Palvan-Zade
        November 14, 2022
        By Furqat Palvan-Zade
        November 10, 2022
        By Nadia Bou Ali
        October 31, 2022
        By Gohar Homayounpour
        October 25, 2022
        By Boris Groys and Patricio Orellana
        October 19, 2022
        By Iman Ganji and Jose Rosales
        October 6, 2022
        By Oxana Timofeeva
        October 5, 2022
        By Attay Kremer
        September 22, 2022
        By William Mazzarella
        September 15, 2022
        By Nathan Brown
        September 10, 2022

        We have tried our best to stay above the chaos, hostility, racism and censorship that have engulfed this edition of documenta. We have tried our best to stay focused and committed to our work and the promises and hopes of the lumbung. We have been resilient and in solidarity with our communities, friends, supporters, hosts and guests.

        September 2, 2022
        By Andrey Loshak
        August 26, 2022
        By Salla Sariola
        August 23, 2022
        By Boris Groys and Keti Chukhrov
        August 18, 2022
        By Bayla Ostrach
        August 17, 2022
        By The Dovzhenko Center
        August 10, 2022
        By Alex Taek-Gwang Lee
        July 27, 2022

        This letter was sent on July 18, 2022 from the artists, ruangrupa, and the artistic team of documenta fifteen to the members of the documenta supervisory board. With surprise we discovered that it became public in the German media, which quoted only selective parts of it, producing a misinterpretation. Here is the letter in full. We appeal to the international press and public to support us in our refusal of censorship.

        July 25, 2022
        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        July 21, 2022
        By Gabriel Tupinambá
        July 11, 2022
        By Coco Fusco
        July 5, 2022
        By Evan Malater and Celeste Pietrusza
        June 15, 2022
        By Blake Lemoine
        June 1, 2022
        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        May 31, 2022
        By Kateryna Filyuk
        May 23, 2022
        By Bohdan Kukharskyy, Anastassia Fedyk, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Ilona Sologoub
        May 16, 2022
        By Hito Steyerl
        May 11, 2022
        By Kateryna Iakovlenko
        May 10, 2022
        By Santhosh S.
        May 7, 2022

        It is with great regret that we announce that the discussion forum “We need to talk,” which was set up in response to accusations of anti-Semitism directed at participants in  documenta fifteen, has been suspended.

        By ruangrupa
        May 2, 2022
        By Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat collective)
        April 27, 2022
        By Kateryna Iakovlenko
        April 5, 2022
        By Bilal Khbeiz
        April 4, 2022
        By Oleksiy Radynski
        March 23, 2022
        By Adrian Ivakhiv
        March 17, 2022

        On the first day, it was terrifying. Nobody knew what kind of reaction to expect from the police, or which degree of violence they would employ. After a week of protesting, it seems to me that people are no longer afraid. The situation in our society is so catastrophic that people realize they already have nothing to lose. This is why many are ready to take the risk—they are unafraid of going to jail, of losing their jobs or their entire lives. Something must be done to finally end this war, for which we feel guilt, shame, alarm, and horror.

        By Oxana Timofeeva
        March 15, 2022
        By Nastia Teor
        March 10, 2022
        By Keti Chukhrov
        March 9, 2022
        By Arseny Zhilyaev
        February 28, 2022
        By e-flux
        February 16, 2022

        We are alarmed that the City of Berlin and its officials have allowed themselves to be instrumentalized by private associations, companies, and individuals around the “cultural manager” Walter Smerling, by providing infrastructural and financial support to the so-called “Kunsthalle Berlin.”

        February 16, 2022

        Wir schreiben Ihnen, weil wir alarmiert sind davon, dass die Stadt Berlin bzw. deren Funktionsträger sich ohne Not mit der räumlichen und finanziellen Unterstützung einer sogenannten „Kunsthalle Berlin“ von privaten Vereinen, Unternehmen und Personen rund um den „Kulturmanager“ Walter Smerling haben instrumentalisieren lassen.

        February 14, 2022

        I remember that Diane was always able to write very directly about complex things, and say and write true things, without pretense or cant, both in poetry and prose, and that’s what drew me to her writing, and it still does.

        By David Levi Strauss
        January 27, 2022

        Cuban government representatives are supposed to be held to high standards of conduct and should be able to engage in reasonable discussions without resorting to violence; but that was not how Alpidio Alonso and other cultural functionaries behaved. 27N has been petitioning the government to demand Alonso’s removal throughout the entire year, to no avail.

        By 27N
        December 4, 2021

        Let others wax eloquent about essences and fixed forms, ethnic identities, automobiles and Opera Houses. For Jimmie the humor was low key, bitter, and funny all at once, something on the move making you smile inwardly while trying to keep up with the shifting focus your unsettled understandings provoked.

        By Michael Taussig
        January 12, 2021

        The abyss is not semiological, but cultural, social, and racial.

        By Franco “Bifo” Berardi
        June 2, 2020
        By Charles Tonderai Mudede
        May 27, 2020

        I say the “notion” of the planetary, because the concept of the planetary is contested, rejected, vague and equivocal across writers and theorists working in and around social science and the humanities now.

        By Jeremy Bendik-Keymer
        May 1, 2020

        I accepted the conditions. No one could or did force me. I told them I would go there alone. I saw the ocean in between as I slowly approached the island. I accepted the conditions, the torture.

        By Pelin Tan
        March 17, 2020

        For the elites, this might be an ungovernable world. But we still have many worlds to propagate, to live and love in comradely care.

        By Jonas Staal
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