Museum Folkwang Cancels Part of an Exhibition on Afrofuturism over Curator Anaïs Duplan’s Pro-Palestinian Social Media Posts

On November 13, 2023, Museum Folkwang in Essen canceled ’Afrofuturism’, a section curated by Anaïs Duplan as a part of the exhibition We is Future. Visions of New Communities, which opened on November 24. The reason given was his pro-Palestine social media posts.

Museum director Peter Gorschlüter informed Duplan of the cancellation via email, deeming Duplan’s posts “unacceptable” for not acknowledging the Hamas attack on Israel and characterizing the Israeli military operation in Gaza as genocide. Gorschlüter further referenced a post shared by Duplan on November 10 that supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, citing the (disputed and legally not binding) BDS resolution of the German Bundestag from 2019.

The museum drew the following conclusions: “With publishing the statements on your instagram channel you have put us in the situation that the museum might be considered to support antisemitic tendencies and voices that question the very right of existence of the state Israel. This stands against the special responsibility of Germany and its commitment to Israel which are both fundamental for us. Therefore we have decided to suspend our collaboration with immediate effect.“

Gorschlüter finished the email by emphasizing the importance of Afrofuturism to the overall exhibition and expressed the museum’s desire to feature several individual artworks from the canceled section in another section dedicated to contemporary art. Most of the artists refused and have asked the museum to return their works.

Duplan and his studio team members, Zoë Butler and Folaṣade Adesanya, had worked on the curatorial concept for over a year, and, at the time of the cancellation, Adesanya had already arrived in Essen for the installation of the exhibition. In an interview with Hyperallergic, Butler explains “As a team, our position on freeing Palestine is also tied to our relationship to Afrofuturism.” Duplan adds “We all work on a project called the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, and we have literally disinvited guests for antisemitic statements. [...] I think the lack of conversation and lack of any effort to really frame a dialogue around antisemitism, around Israel, and around Palestine feels really repressive.”