INSIDEN PENURUNAN BANNER PEOPLE’S JUSTICE DI DOCUMENTA FIFTEEN DAN PERINTANG KOMUNIKASI ANTARBUDAYA

On 20 June 2022, Indonesian artists and art observers were shocked by the news that Taring Padi’s banner artwork entitled People’s Justice exhibited at Documenta Fifteen was interpreted by protesters as containing anti-Semitic elements. Taring Padi explained that his work was based on Indonesia’s political landscape during the New Order regime and had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. However, the banner was eventually dismantled on 21 June 2022. This brought up several interesting research questions pertaining to the chronological account of the incident, the causes of the incident, and actions that should have been taken by Taring Padi as a cultural agent. This research applied the qualitative method with critical discourse analysis approach. Results found that the incident occurred because of two main reasons. Firstly, the protesters were unwilling to ask the artist for any clarification and explanation. Secondly, Taring Padi was ignorant about elements which could be considered anti-Semitic because the concept is not particularly well-known in Indonesia. People’s Justice could actually serve as a medium for initiating dialogues between fellow artists and their audience. However, this work has potential drawbacks because it contains potentially misunderstood antagonism that narrows the interpretive space. This incident could have been prevented if the artist had provided sufficient room for dialogic interpretation and if the audience had been more open-minded, through which discursive encounters can be held to understand each other’s cultural and societal problems.