Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has withdrawn his patronage for the “Diversity United” exhibition currently being shown in Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery.
The exhibition with works by around 90 young and established artists from 34 countries was opened by Steinmeier in Berlin last June.
The project, originally planned as part of the Year of Germany in Russia, was to be held in Paris after Moscow.
According to the organizer Walter Smerling from the private association "Foundation for Art and Culture", this station is omitted.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Smerling asked the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow to close the exhibition and return the works to the lenders or artists.
However, there is "legally no remedy," said Smerling of the German Press Agency.
The association is only a co-organiser.
The work was originally supposed to go back in mid-March.
There had already been controversy about the “Diversity United” exhibition, even after Smerling had presented his most recent exhibition at Tempelhof Airport as “Kunsthalle Berlin”.
Several artists had withdrawn their works from the exhibition.