American photographer Nan Goldin opens exhibition in Berlin with fiery speech against Israel

BERLIN (AP) — American photographer and activist Nan Goldin has used a speech at the opening of her exhibition in Germany to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza.

Goldin, 71, said Friday she wanted to use her retrospective show at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin “as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage” at what she described as “genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.”

“My grandparents escaped pogroms in Russia. I was brought up knowing about the Nazi Holocaust. What I see in Gaza reminds me of the pogroms that my grandparents escaped,” Goldin said.

Goldin, who is of Jewish origin, was born in Washington D.C. and is a leading artist and activist whose life and work was documented in the award-winning 2022 film “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”

She spoke of the displacement and destruction in Gaza, and told a cheering audience that criticism of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism.

Goldin also criticized Germany and alleged that Islamophobia was being ignored in the country. “Germany is home of the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe. Yet protests are met with police dogs and deportation and stigmatization,” she said.

Goldin walked off the stage to loud chants of “free, free Palestine,” which drowned out a subsequent speech by the director of the gallery, Klaus Biesenbach.

Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, to which the Neue Nationalgalerie belongs, sharply condemned Goldin’s talk and the protesters’ disruption of Biesenbach’s speech.

“This does not correspond to our understanding of freedom of expression,” he said.

Biesenbach noted that he disagreed with Goldin but affirmed her right to freely express herself.

In a statement released by Biesenbach after the show’s opening, cited by German news agency dpa, he said the gallery distanced itself from the protesters’ stance and “clarifies that it stands for freedom of expression and respectful dialogue and interaction with each other.”

Neue Nationalgalerie’s lifetime retrospective of Goldin, titled “This Will Not End Well,” showcases a comprehensive overview of Goldin’s work, including slideshows and films backed up by music.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said this week that the death toll in the Gaza Strip from the 13-month-old war between Israel and Hamas has surpassed 44,000, with more than half of the fatalities women and children. The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.