Düsseldorf, Germany — In early June, the Julia Stoschek collection, one of the world’s leading private institutions of media art, premiered. Ambitious new show celebrating the 15th anniversary: “World Building” is an exhibition focusing on the intersection of art and video games, featuring works exploring issues such as transphobia, gun violence, and environmental degradation.
Billionaire Stoshek, 47, who inherits the property of German auto parts, owns this collection. This collection is one of the largest “time-based arts” in the world, including performances, movies, videos and digital works. “Younger gamers are becoming more aware of serious issues such as refugees, racism and the treatment of women,” Stoshek said of the “World Building” show, which will be held until December 10, 2023. I did. “Current topic,” she added. “It’s very momentary and often political.”
Besides overseeing two popular exhibition spaces in Düsseldorf and Berlin, Stoshek participates in the boards and committees of MoMAPS1 and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles. She is currently a board member of the Neue National galerie in Berlin. She has financially supported many art projects, including several German entries at the Venice Biennale.
But in recent years, German observers have questioned Stoshek as art funders have been scrutinized, as museums have sought to stay away from donors such as the Suckler family and oil giant BP. Some argue that there is a contrast between the politics of her collection and the origin of the money that underpins it.
German industrialist Max Brose, Stoshek’s great-grandfather, was a member of the Nazi party. During World War II, his car company partially used forced labor to manufacture gasoline canisters and weapons for the German military. While many German companies, including Hugo Boss and Bertelsmann, have been openly involved in the Nazi regime, the Stosheks have been accused of wiping their history under the floor covering.
The family has long said that Bros is a non-ideal member of the Nazi party, who often dealt with forced laborers in his company, primarily Soviet prisoners of war. This account is supported by a 2008 book commissioned by the company from historian Gregor Schöllgen. Title “”Brows: German family-owned company,It’s a repulsion from some scholars and journalists because the majority of the broth is a rosy depiction and the published work does not contain footnotes, making it difficult to verify that claim. I have received it. The New York Times learned that footnotes have been available on demand for several years, but Brose historians said no such request was received.
The spread of Broze’s relationship with forced labor and the Nazi party in the German art world led to debate among artists about the ethics of cooperating with Stoshek.
In 2020, artist Leon Kahane screened an animated video on a pop-up display next to Stoshek’s Berlin exhibition space as part of an installation that diagonally explored the relationship between Stoshek’s good luck and forced labor. This work sparked a heated debate in the Berlin art scene.
Given that the Stoshek collection “includes artists dealing with colonialism, slavery, and German history,” Kahane said in a telephone interview that “some of the Stoshek projects were signed. It made people nervous. ” He emphasized that he was not trying to “cancel” her collector, but rather urged her to transparently examine the history of her family. As an artist, he said he wouldn’t consider working with her unless that happened.
In an interview in Berlin, Stoshek said he had accepted a scrutiny of his family’s property. “It’s very important for the art scene to see where money comes from, as it is these days,” she said.
However, she claimed that the money to fund her collection was not from the Nazi era, but was built by her grandfather and father in the decades after the war. “Our business was in financial ruin after World War II,” she said. She added that the company paid for a fund to compensate for forced labor. In 2000, Brose paid Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation about $ 734,000, according to company historian Uwe Balder. About 6,500 German companies donated about € 5.2 billion, or $ 5.4 billion, to the fund. According to the Foundation website..
Stoshek said she stood by Schöllgen’s book, which she added that she was written without pressure from her family. “We’ve been pondering the history of the company,” she said, and footnotes were available at the request of Brose’s company historians, but “no one is in our archive. It’s interesting. “
In a telephone interview, Bayreuth University historian Tim Shanetsky relied on flawed evidence, including so-called denazification trials, for most comparable reports investigating the activities of companies during the Third Reich era. Minutes held after the war to ascertain the extent of German participation in the administration, stating that public footnotes were included to avoid accusations of being. According to the Bavarian State Archive, Bros was eventually classified as a “follower”. This is the second lowest of the five levels of accomplices. “Followers” Generally defined As a nominal member of the Nazi Party who participated only in basic or compulsory party activities.
Mr. Chanetsky said that the witness statements in these proceedings upheld the defendant either because the Germans were outraged by the Allied winners or because the employees wanted to maintain a good relationship with their employers. Said that there are many.
At The Times’ request, the Brose Archive provides a list of footnotes, showing that some disclaimers in the book portray a statement from Brose’s defense counsel and support witnesses during the denazification trial. I am. A regional business association primarily for limiting the Nazis’ impact on local economic administration.
“When quoting a denazified document, we need to reflect that it is subjective,” says Schanetzky. He added that books like Schöllgen need to emphasize evidence from both sides of such trials in order to be convincing.
Other sections describing the company’s generous treatment of forced labor are based on a statement by Brose himself. The book makes little reference to the dozens of allegations made by Bros workers contained in other court documents that the Times viewed in the Bavarian archives. These explanations describe the abuse of forced labor, including daily beatings and chronic malnutrition, in some cases.
The book’s author, Schöllgen, skeptically treats “both condemnation and justification testimony” from the denazification process in an email, and his portrayal is from a trial and subsequent appeal. He said it was backed by a verdict. He added that Bros’ contribution to the Forced Labor Compensation Fund is evidence of its commitment to working seriously throughout its history.
“No one would talk about this,” Shanetsky said if Stogen’s work was done transparently, and the money she invested in the collection and the company of Bros in the Third Reich. “The decisive point is that the business was still there after the war,” he said. “There were many companies that failed, and their families do not hire historians to collect art.”
Such luggage complicates the general image of Stoshek, a “politician” who claims to be aiming to use her collection to support underrated groups in the art scene. .. Approximately half of the works in the “World Building” show are by female or non-binary artists, adding that her goal is to diversify the collection to include more non-European and non-European artists. ..
After she described it as “conservative” and “traditional” upbringing, Stoshek became a convert to video art in his twenties. Douglas Gordon’s “Play Dead; Real Time,” An influential video piece of a trained elephant pretending to be dead at a gallery in New York. “It’s an absolute masterpiece,” Stoschek said, adding that her decision to collect media art also came from her desire to “dialogue” with artists of her generation.
She has been supported by prominent connections in the art world, including her early friendships with former MoMA PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach and MOCA, who now heads Neue National galerie. “She is one of the pioneers of her generation who has shown that you can succeed, be influential and influential, collect and display media and performance,” Biesenbach said in her telephone interview. Said. He described Stoshek as “utopian, that is, I believe the world will improve.”
She is particularly influential in that segment of the art world, as there are relatively few prominent private collectors focused on media art. Stoshek has collected the works of Hito Steyerl, Anne Imhoff and Ryan Trecartin. As Hans Ulrich Obrist, who curated the “World Building” exhibition, explained in a video interview, Stoshek is big in supporting artists early in his career, including her video artist Ed Atkins. It had an impact. “From the beginning, she was curious about the artist before they were well known,” Obrist said.
But its role as a patron, who promised to support inclusive and political art, is now increasingly in dire straits. last year, Instagram discussion In the German news media, by seeking more transparency about the funding of the cultural scene related to the Nazi era, between two cultural critics, artist Mostari Hilal and essayist Sintjan Balataraja. It attracted attention. In it, Hilal argued that Stoshek needed to be more resolutely distant from his great-grandfather. “I think it’s great when great-grandchildren promote our politics, civil rights, and cross-feminism, but it’s strange when no other part is mentioned.”
Stoshek said many of such discussions were “emotional” and repeatedly asked for Hilal and Barataraja to meet and talk in person, adding that her invitation was ignored. (In an email, they said they had never been contacted by the Stoschek team.)
Stoshek added that none of the artists in her collection had expressed concern to her about the history of her family. “They trust us — that we are investigating it,” she said.
