NEW YORK, NY.- Documenta, an art world mega-event held every five years in Kassel, Germany, is no stranger to controversy. Yet this year’s edition has eclipsed anything in the past.

Since the sprawling show opened in June, a major artwork has been pulled from display for containing antisemitic caricatures, and the event’s director general has resigned. Late last month, some members of the country’s governing coalition called for Documenta to be shut down until it could be vetted for further antisemitic works after it emerged that the show also contained drawings made during the 1980s of Israeli soldiers, including one with a hooked nose.

The uproar around the images has dominated German newspapers for weeks — but that comes on top of months of allegations that ruangrupa, a collective that curated this year’s event, and other artists, were supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, which is widely viewed in Germany as antisemitic.

Taken together, Documenta has become the latest cultural event to highlight a growing divide between the German establishment’s views on a boycott of Israel and those of artists, musicians and other creatives, particularly from outside the country.

The furor around Documenta began six months before the show opened, when a protest group, Alliance Against Antisemitism Kassel, raised accusations of artists supporting the BDS movement. The accusations were made on an anonymous blog but were picked up by German newspapers and repeated by politicians.

In June, there was a full-blown scandal when Indonesian art collective Taring Padi installed an artwork called “People’s Justice” from 2002 in one of Kassel’s main squares.

Around 60 feet long, it is a political banner that features cartoonlike depictions of activists struggling under Indonesia’s military rule. Among hundreds of figures is a caricature of a Jew with sidelocks and fangs, wearing a hat emblazoned with the Nazi SS emblem.

Shortly after the work was installed, German politicians and Jewish groups condemned it as antisemitic. Taring Padi and ruangrupa apologized, and the work was taken down.

With so little trust between the artists and the German media and authorities, even efforts to address the flashpoints at Documenta are facing challenges. On Monday, an academic panel appointed by regional authorities began studying what had happened at Documenta. Its remit includes providing advice should further problematic images come to light.

But many artists at Documenta have opposed the panel.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.