The Condition of No

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“The series “The Condition of No: Talks on Boycott, Censorship and Protest in Germany” announced for March 5 to May 11, 2025, has been canceled. After the City of Munich intervened against the list of speakers, the museum and the curators did not want to accept this intervention and therefore canceled the entire series.

Experts from various disciplines were to speak on five evenings about the limits of freedom of speech and artistic freedom. With the cancellation, what was to be the topic of the discussion series has become reality: “Cancellations, boycotts, censorship, behavioral clauses and protests have a massive impact on the cultural sector”. The aim of the Museum Villa Stuck was to facilitate discussions and with them understanding, differentiation and communication.

Due to the short turnaround of this situation we are looking for a possibility to realize this program in the near future. We must not stop talking to each other.”

– Statement of Villa Stuck

 

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The boundaries of freedom of speech and artistic freedom are currently under scrutiny. Cancellations, boycotts, censorship, codes of conduct and protests are having a massive impact on the cultural field, but talking about them is difficult. With this series, we invite experts from various disciplines to engage in intensive and candid discussions about very specific German case studies: What happened? Why did it happen? And: What can we learn?

 

Prologue: What are the Limits?

05 MAR 2025, 19.00 CET
With Aziz Al-Azmeh & Susan Neiman
Moderated by Florian Malzacher

What is considered an acceptable opinion has been increasingly narrowed down in recent years. The prologue of The Condition of No (which at the same time is the 30th episode of The Art of Assembly) asks where the limits of freedom of expression lie, what we have to listen to, how we can combine the need for safe spaces with the need for agonistic spheres – and when the state should intervene. Looking at the history of the Enlightenment, philosopher Susan Neiman doubts that the explosive current debates in Germany, for example, are really about freedom of expression. The historian Aziz Al-Azmeh profiles Arab and Islamic topoi present in Germany today and juxtaposes considerations of universalism with an intensified discourse of culturalism and cultural difference.

Case I: German Institutions

06 MAR 2025, 19.00 CET
With Margarita Tsomou & Eyal Weizman
Moderated by Michael Buhrs

While initiatives such as Strike Germany and numerous international artists accuse most German cultural institutions of complicity in silencing pro-Palestinian positions or at least a lack of balance, the latter often see themselves as defenders of freedom of expression who, against all odds, keep spaces for dialogue open. Margarita Tsomous is a curator who organises discourse programmes at Berlin’s Theater Hebbel am Ufer – HAU. Eyal Weizman, director and founder of the research agency Forensic Architecture, criticises bias and self-censorship in the German cultural field.

Case II: Codes of Conduct

27 MAR 2025, 19.00 CET
With Candice Breitz & Christoph Möllers
Moderated by Bernd M. Scherer

Numerous codes of conduct have been negotiated, passed and heavily criticized at federal, state and municipal level in recent years. Especially in the area of cultural funding, debates about the pros and cons of codes of conduct have shaken the cultural climate. Cultural institutions are unsure how to defend their own freedom – between supposed and real censorship, self-censorship and the desire to do the right thing. The discussion will feature South African-born, Berlin-based artist Candice Breitz, whose exhibition planned for 2024 at the Saarland Museum was canceled due to allegedly controversial statements on the Gaza war, and constitutional law expert Christoph Möllers, Professor of Public Law and Philosophy of Law at Humboldt-University in Berlin, who advises the German government, among others.

Case III: documenta fifteen

APR 2025
With Elke Buhr et al.
Moderated by N.N.

The discussions surrounding documenta fifteen, curated by the Indonesian artists‘ collective ruangrupa, had just calmed down a little when an anti-Semitism scandal finally divided the public shortly after the opening. While one side now described the entire exhibition as anti-Semitic, the other saw it primarily as a smear campaign in which artists from the Global South were placed under general suspicion. The fronts have hardened to this day. We are interested: What role did the press play? And what can we learn from it?

Case IV: Universities & Academies

09 MAY 2025, 19.00 CET
With Meron Mendel & Geraldine Rauch
Moderated by N.N.

Alongside culture, the debate about freedom of expression is most heated at universities and academies: Places where the free exchange of opinions should be a fundamental prerequisite for research and teaching. The anti-Semitic incidents and pro-Palestinian protests at German universities and academies in the context of the Gaza war are the starting point for the discussion. Geraldine Rauch, President of the Technical University of Berlin, was harshly criticised for her supposedly overly understanding approach to the student protests – including by Meron Mendel, Director of the Anne Frank Educational Centre in Frankfurt.

Epilogue: Useful Art in the Condition of No

11 MAY 2025, 15.00 CET
With Tania Bruguera
Moderated by Florian Malzacher and Roland Wenninger

For many years, the Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera, who currently lives in exile in the USA, has been campaigning for freedom of speech and against censorship in her performances and exhibitions. At the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, Tania Bruguera’s performance Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading “The Origins of Totalitarianism“) made headlines in early 2024. The reading of Hannah Arendt’s book was disrupted by protesters and stopped the following morning. Based on her experiences in Berlin and at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Tania Bruguera conceived the three-part project “The Condition of No“ for the Villa Stuck in Munich, examining the issue of censorship from different angles. Author and dramaturge Florian Malzacher and curator Roland Wenninger talk to Tania Bruguera about her experiences in very different contexts.

 

A production by VS – Villa Stuck
in cooperation with INSTAR & The Art of Assembly