Kraków art museum criticised for Auschwitz film

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK) in Kraków has received further criticism over a controversial film that shows people playing tag naked in a former gas chamber.

Renowned visual artist and filmmaker Artur Żmijewski’s Game of Tag was originally included in the Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz exhibition which began on 15 May. The museum has now changed its policy of screening the exhibit on a loop, and the film may now only be viewed from inside a booth that carries a warning sign at its entrance.

The film, which depicts a group of people playing tag naked in an apartment and later in a former gas chamber, has faced criticism from Jewish groups.

Ronald S Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, expressed disappointment that MOCAK would screen a film that “causes extraordinary anguish to Auschwitz survivors” and labelled the film “sensationalism in the guise of freedom of artistic expression”.

At the time of the initial controversy last month, MOCAK director Maria Potocka argued that “to read this film as an insult to the victims of the concentration camps we feel is to misinterpret it”.

Game of Tag, which was partly filmed at a former gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau, has been withdrawn from several international exhibitions.