More than 50 galleries across Düsseldorf and Cologne have signed an open letter condemning the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's Düsseldorf faction, accusing it of invoking the postwar conceptual artist and political activist Joseph Beuys — and the poet Heinrich Heine — to promote an upcoming cultural-policy event.

The event in question, titled 'Cultural Policy From the Right,' is scheduled for October 26 in Düsseldorf and combines a walking tour of the city's art venues with a lecture by Matthias Helferich, the AfD's Bundestag representative. Helferich is considered one of the party's more radical figures: elected in 2021, he was temporarily expelled from the AfD's North Rhine-Westphalia branch in 2025 after leaked chats showed him calling himself 'the friendly face of the Nazis' and styling himself a 'democratic Freisler' — a reference to the Nazi judge who imposed the death penalty on thousands. He has claimed the remarks parodied his left-wing critics.

The galleries' letter, initiated by Daniela Horn of Van Horn gallery, accuses the party of trying to 'instrumentalize Düsseldorf's art and cultural history to serve a political narrative that promotes social exclusion.' Beuys, who taught at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and preached art as a vehicle for social transformation, is a figure whose legacy the galleries argue belongs to precisely the open culture the AfD opposes.

Hyperallergic noted it could not independently confirm Beuys's name appearing on the AfD's own websites — but the episode fits a pattern. The 2026 edition of documenta has already seen its curator defend the exhibition against expected pro-Palestine protests, and Germany's art world has spent the year arguing over who gets to claim its cultural symbols. The gallery letter is the latest front in that fight.