Afektywne granice i niesmaczna sztuka polityczna: «Pierwszy upadek europejskiego muru» Centrum Politycznego Piękna

This article analyzes the scandal caused in the German public sphere by the Center for Political Beauty’s intervention The First Fall of the European Wall (2014). Prepared just before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the campaign aimed to expose the hypocrisy of German politicians, who celebrated the dismantling of old borders and at the same time co-financed the emergence of new ones. The author presents the course of this artivist action and analyzes its negative reception, focusing on comments from a group of recipients which she categorizes as “disgusted audience.” The analysis draws on the concepts of competitive and multidirectional memory (Michael Rothberg), affect theory (Sara Ahmed), and theory of disgust (Winfried Menninghaus) to show how an audience constituted itself to depreciate the project based on the category of taste and to activate various defense mechanisms blocking the discussion about political issues brought to public attention by the artists.