Villa Stuck Postpones The Condition of No Following Intervention from the City of Munich

Shortly before it was to begin on March 5, 2025, The Condition of No: Talks on Boycott, Censorship and Protest in Germany, a series of talks, was cancelled by its organizers “due to an intervention by the City of Munich against the list of speakers.” The event was curated by Tania Bruguera, Florian Malzacher, and Roland Wenniger, and hosted by Villa Stuck in cooperation with INSTAR and The Art of Assembly.

According to on art magazine, “the city administration allegedly complained that one of the participants had signed a call as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.” The magazine identifies the participant as the historian Aziz al-Asmeh, who had signed “a call by 400 philosophy professors for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel on October 31, 2023.” Bernd Kastner, writing for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, reports that the museum and the curators “did not want to accept this intervention and therefore cancelled the entire series.”

According to Kastner, Munich’s cultural department refuted that an intervention was made. Instead, “the department head, Anton Biebl, who was still in office at the time, had advised [Michael Buhrs, the director of Villa Stuck], ‘at [Buhrs’] request.’" Their discussion concerned “the process, possible press work, and the implementation of the discussion series," and the decision to cancel “was made ‘solely’ by the museum management.”

The Condition of No was eventually rescheduled to take place from May 3 to July 6, 2025. According to Villa Stuck, this follows “intensive consideration and following the conviction that the series of talks […] will open up a space for exchange and discussion.”