A German architecture foundation has rescinded one of its €10,000 (£8,360) awards from a British artist over an open letter he signed promising a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, citing the German government’s controversial antisemitism resolution as a factor behind the decision.
The Athens-based artist and author James Bridle was announced in June as the recipient of the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize, awarded every two years, for his “outstanding contributions to architectural theory”.
But on Sunday, days before this Wednesday’s awards ceremony in the south-western city of Karlsruhe, Bridle was informed in an email that the foundation’s committee had decided unanimously not to award him the prize because he was among the several thousand authors who signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions.
Signatories of the pledge, published on LitHub at the end of October, stated that “we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians”.
In a press release, the foundation said Bridle’s signature on the letter was “in direct contradiction” to responsibilities from the “awareness of Germany’s national history”.
The foundation’s prizes, which have been awarded since 1992, are named after the late German architect Erich Schilling. On its website, the foundation says Schilling was a member of the NSDAP, the German Nazi party, between 1937 and 1945, and worked on the construction of the offices of the publishing house of the party newspaper Der Führer.
“We respect the right to express political views, especially since the foundation does not accuse James Bridle of antisemitism,” its statement said. “But the foundation can neither support nor be associated with a call for cultural isolation of Israel.”
In its email to Bridle, which has been seen by the Guardian, the foundation further linked its decision to a cross-party resolution passed by the German parliament earlier this month.
“The German Bundestag has just passed a resolution on the protection of Jewish life, which points the way forward for state institutions and is relevant to society as a whole,” the foundation said in its email.
The resolution, entitled Never Again is Now: Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life in Germany, was first proposed after the Hamas terror attack on 7 October 2023. International NGOs including Amnesty International and Israeli Jewish groups campaigning for a two-state solution have criticised its text for eliding antisemitism and criticism of Israel’s human rights record, predicting it would have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
The resolution says “the Bundestag reaffirms its decision to ensure that no organisations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support”.
Bridle told the Guardian: “Although they are clearly not prepared to state it outright, the foundation’s decision is an accusation of antisemitism, which is abhorrent. It is particularly so given the organisation’s own history.”
Bridle said there was an irony in that the Schilling jury cited as particularly deserving of recognition his 2022 bookd Ways of Being, which contained a discussion of Israel’s “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank, and “of the relationship between genocide and ecocide”.
A spokesperson for the foundation said the other nominees for the prize had been informed of their decision, “and we have to be prepared for there to be further reactions”.
