[8][9] Initially, a postponement to 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic was considered in 2021,[12] though it was eventually decided that documenta fifteen would continue to run in 2022 from 8 June to 25 September.
[14][15] German law bars the use of federal funds for groups with ties to the BDS movement, which is a global campaign calling for economic sanctions against Israeli goods and initiatives.
[22][23] Days after the 18 June 2022 opening of documenta fifteen, a mural titled People's Justice (2002) by the Indonesian artist group Taring Padi came under intense controversy over what the German and Israeli governments condemned as antisemitic imagery, and the mural was subsequently covered up and taken down, sparking major political, artistic, and social debates in Germany.
[24][25][26][27] Originally collaboratively created in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2002, the mural illustrates Indonesian politics as a battle of the people against oppressors, capitalists, and polluters.
[28] The mural is a critique of Suharto's military dictatorship and the complex power relationships that sustained it, with a section depicting the involvement of the government of Israel through the use of Jewish caricatures.
[28] These figures included a soldier with a pig's face and a Star of David, as well as a man with sidecurls, sharp teeth and SS runes on his hat.
[30] Israeli and German media outlets reported on the controversy as a scandal, framing Documenta as having ignored earlier warnings by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and accusing ruangrupa of antisemitic attitudes.
"[29] Jörg Sperling, chairman of the Documenta-Forum, criticized the taking-down of the mural, connecting the work to the historical context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, a "subject that lies outside of art" and that Documenta could not solve.
[40] The letter highlighted the continued harassment and discrimination faced by ruangrupa and documenta fifteen artists, speaking out against the methods and claims of the advisory panel as pseudoscientific, racist, and Eurocentric, "a way of projecting onto and transposing German guilt and history into the Palestinian and other anti-colonial struggles.
[41] In November 2022, ruangrupa topped the ArtReview Power 100 list for their defense of artistic freedom amidst the controversies of documenta fifteen, as well as their influential mode of nonhierarchical working that continues to inspire ongoing collaborations across the art world.