The Art of Protest in Germany

Artist activism might well be as old as art itself. Artists observe and often critique what they don’t like about the societies in which they live, and the distance from critique to protest can be quite short. This presentation will take a closer look at present-day Germany where artists have felt compelled to use their art, and their positions as artists, to resist an anti-democratic shift in the country’s political culture. After briefly exploring the influence of art on the development of a national memory culture after the Third Reich, our attention will turn to more recent artist activism addressing the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, the surge in popularity of the nationalist Alternative für Deutschland (= Alternative for Germany) party, and the controversy surrounding Germany’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Specific artistic interventions in the public discourse on Germany’s democratic stability will be examined with a view to answering a key question: does artist activism provide an effective defense of German democracy?