Documenta is a contemporary art exhibition organized once every five years in the city of Kassel, in Germany. Each edition lasts for 100 days (this year 18 June – 25 September) and is disseminated across a variety of locations. I found out about Documenta from Dan Perjovschi, who was also invited to make his art in Kassel. We had a chat about the fact that I wanted to go to the Venice Biennale this year and Dan suggested that it would be a great idea to see Documenta first and then the Biennale. At Documenta, the exhibited artworks are not for sale, so the big collectors would much rather go to Venice, where the commercial side of art is more evident. Conversely, at Documenta, people are educated about art, you notice a clear attempt to cultivate curatorial practices that are different from their European counterparts, as well as to exhibit artists that are not necessarily represented by an art gallery, the majority of them being from the global south. The exhibitions at Documenta are not static, they are constantly revised and modified by the artists through workshops, presentations, discussions and other connected events.
Kassel is a city in the heart of Germany, similar to Sibiu in size, with a picturesque look and thermal baths, located in a plateau with many hills, a city which the young people cannot wait to escape from and in which the elderly are respected and taken care of. The addition of an art project the magnitude of Documenta is a way in which to revitalize and activate certain intercultural mechanisms from which the city can only benefit. I don’t know how the city is outside the 100 days of Documenta but I suspect it isn’t of much interest internationally. Still, Kassel contains a multitude of immigrant communities and a great variety of nationalities and all this becomes visible if you go by tram and listen to the myriad of languages spoken in it, or if you take a look out the window and count the large number of non-German restaurants and shops. Just as the city of Sibiu gets its multicultural nourishment from international festivals, the same goes for Kassel where you can breathe in a more vibrant air during Documenta.
The curatorial core of documenta15 is represented by an Indonesian art collective, ruangrupa, who worked for 5 years to create the exhibition inviting other artists and art collectives who, in their turn, have invited other participants. When documenta15 opened, there were 1500 artists exhibiting in 32 locations. The concept of lumbung is at the basis of organizing documenta15, an Indonesian term used in agriculture that refers to a rice barn used collectively by the members of a rural community. This is the place where the entire harvest is kept to be used by the community as a way to meet certain future and unpredictable challenges. The budget of almost 42 million euros was equally distributed among participants and they were solely responsible for their expenses. Thus, ruangrupa tried to shake up the European notion of art fair which promotes competition and consumerism, by presenting curatorial and artistic practices that facilitate the cooperation among artists. The artworks have not been commissioned for the event but “translated” so that the participants would not have to stop their local artistic practices just to produce commissioned art, the organizers aiming for the appropriation of sustainable practices.
A lot of the art projects presented at documenta15 are connected, directly or indirectly, with agricultural practices and the sustainability of nature, in which the emphasis is placed on sustaining a community and collective development. We encountered such initiatives from the first day, at WH22, where the Vietnamese group NHÀ SÀN COLLECTIVE has recreated part of the architectural structures in which they started their activity in Hanoi, among which was also a garden for migratory plants and a hut in which you could find seeds of the plants in the garden. Open to the public and activated at certain moments through workshops, performances and discussions, the Vietnamese garden was our starting point at documenta15.
The main location of documenta15 is the museum Fridericianum in Friedrichsplatz, which the artistic team sees as lumbung, the barn that holds the entire harvest, the starting point of the guided tours, the so-called exhibition walks, guided by artistic mediators (sobat-sobat). The meeting point for that was in front of the museum, in the shade of the oak trees planted by Joseph Beuys in 1982, where it was always full of visitors.
Romanian artist, DAN PERJOVSCHI, was invited to make his art on the neo-classical columns of the museum but also in the square of the central train station, Rainer Dierichs Platz, where he is constantly adding drawings on socio-political themes creating the most visible open air, free-of-charge exhibition of the entire documenta15. His project is an extension of the wall that he is drawing in Sibiu. The difference between the two locations is the public, which in Kassel is very curious to find out about the themes behind the drawings and Dan’s artistic practice, as we noticed one evening when we went to see the artist at work.
Once we entered the museum, we were bombarded with information and strategies related to art education. Downstairs was FRIDSKUL (the museum functioning as a school), which contained invented games, educational models and resources and conclusions from previous workshops with artists who were still in art school, all gathered by GUDSKUL COLLECTIVE (founded by ruangrupa). Also downstairs, there was RURUKIDS, a public, free day care, initiated by GRAZIELA KUNSCH in collaboration with the engineer Elke Avenarius, which attempted to encourage baby autonomy and the closeness between parents and children through artistic and movement practices. Thus, besides its classical function of recreation, the museum was enriched with the function of activity, practice and education.
Also at Fridericianum, we went through the section dedicated to archives where I became totally entranced by the activism of women from Algeria, namely an independent initiative of ARCHIVES DES LUTTES DES FEMMES EN ALGERIE trying to digitize and make available as many materials as possible produced by activists and associations run by women in Algeria and the Algerian diaspora. At Fridericianum they proposed a fragmented chronology of women’s movements and protests in Algeria presented through posters, fliers, photos but also video recordings. I am very interested in this type of documentary art because I have also started project Bessarabia, which requires a lot of anthropological and archival work related to a neglected minority. I was equally excited by THE BLACK ARCHIVES, which presents the decolonization struggle in the Netherlands from the point of view of black activists in the 70s who did not enjoy the same visibility as the present-day Black Lives Matter protesters. Their installation in the shape of a library makes storytelling a tool of resistance against structural racism.
On a more classical note, we saw some extraordinary tapestries upstairs, from the series “Out of Egypt” created by Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, from OFF-BIENNALE BUDAPEST. The artist wanted to reinterpret some old tapestries, which originally showed Roma people in a more dismal manner. She recreated the old models, inserting the humanity and dignity of Roma collectives in her version. Up ahead were the paintings of RICHARD BELL who captured moments of activism in the fight against racism. Also upstairs was a room where we spent more than an hour watching documentary films used as diaries of several artists from the Middle East, a very realistic manner to finish our day at the Fridericianum.
We came back on another day to visit the basement of the museum, where the artist SAODAT ISMAILOVA, alongside other 18 invited artists from Kazakhstan, Kirghistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has populated the dark space with chilltan, beings that shapeshift constantly, keepers of ancient knowledge and spiritual diversity. Through alternating rooms separated by silk curtains, the space carries you from film screenings, to a round table with shamanic texts, all of them based on the number 40, the Persian term chilltan meaning 40 beings. This was a mythical and mythological trip to another universe, right in the heart of Kassel.
Even with a map available, it’s still hard to navigate between locations. When you don’t know where to go, it’s easy to head to ruruHaus – the central point of documenta15. You can always find the daily updated programme there. That’s exactly what we did in our second day and we ended up underground where we came across the project of ELLA VON DER HAIDE who directed a film about queer gardening, about the queer/feminist ecological communities of North America and gardening as a way of life and as a refuge from an unsustainable life style. After the screening, Ella invited us to take part in a tattoo workshop where we discussed the relationship between humans and microbes.
Another location in the city center is documenta Halle, the only one specially constructed for documenta in 1992, with tall white walls and towering windows. The first part of the building hosts an exhibition of members of the collective WAJUKUU ART PROJECT, a project that is carried out in a poor part of Nairobi, Kenya. Access is through a dark corridor, a simulation of a tunnel inspired by the Maasai tribe houses, that leads you to different installations created with work tools used in the household.
We then stepped into the light in the largest hall of the venue where we were greeted by the deafening and trance-inducing rhythms of a band from Thailand, part of the non-profit collective BAAN NOORG. The huge space has a fully-functioning skateboard ramp in the middle where anyone carrying a skateboard can enter for free or where you can actually learn to skate. There is also a simulacrum of a shop that includes products made of porcelain and a printing press that runs everyday at documenta Halle, printing different art resources ordered by the artists taking part in documenta15. The sample materials and print excesses are left to be taken by whoever wants them.
I found documenta Halle to be the most active location on a daily basis since it’s also the place where presentations are held by several artistic groups, such as INSTAR (INSTITUTO DE ARTIVISMO HANNAH ARENDT), created by the Cuban artist and activist TANIA BRUGUERA to promote civic literacy and social justice in Cuba. INSTAR has the mission to install 10 exhibitions every 10 days during the whole period of documenta15 while holding public discussions, performances by Cuban artists and other connected events. The best part was the open feeling of the main hall (not the only place of this kind at documenta15), where people could take part in workshops, they were encouraged to write on the walls of the skateboard ramp and invited to express themselves through graffiti and other types of manifestations. I also left my sticky marks there.
Leaving the city center, you can go to Karlsaue park where you will be confronted with a series of open-air artworks. The most imposing of its kind is ”Return to Sender”, the project of THE NEST COLLECTIVE in Kenya, a multimedia installation that imitates a dystopian garbage dump which strikes a great contrast with the Orangerie palace where there is an installation made out of hundreds of piles of unwanted garments. It reflects the problems with which the less industrialized countries are confronted, turning into garbage dumps for the galloping consumerism manifested by the people from industrialized countries. To me, this artwork acted as a warning sign each time I went through the park. Such installations of awareness of damaging practices or of acquaintance with sustainable and ecological practices are scattered along the Fulda river which crosses the park.
We also encountered a project like that at Bootsverleih Ahoi, where the artist CHANG EN-MAN tries to tell the story of imperialism in South-East Asia (from her point of view as descendant of the Paiwan indigenous people of Taiwan) through the migration of giant African snails. She has created a stained glass waiting room which doubles as an archive and draws the routes of the snails explaining their connection to colonialism: these snails were introduced by the Japanese as a source of nourishment but they became an invasive species in Taiwan. The waiting room leads you to board a boat which is activated at certain points at documenta15, leading you to an unexpected journey on the Fulda river.
An extremely complex location that is also very well organized is Hübner areal, the former headquarters of a company that is producing car and tank parts, used for the first time this year at Documenta. In the industrial complex you can see the creations of FONDATION FESTIVAL SUR LE NIGER connected to hospitality practices and other traditions central to the culture of Mali, TRAMPOLINE HOUSE presents the immigration policies of Denmark in an installation containing video and printed resources about the asylum system, and upstairs is the cafeteria where the Chinese artist BOLOHO is filming a sitcom and then shows it on screens right next to the tables.
In the basement (where all the powerful stuff is, it seems) is the project of AMOL K PATIL, ”Black Masks on Roller Skates”, which relies on performance to reignite the anti-colonial flame that his grandfather had carried for the rights of workers through his avangarde writing while also positioning himself against the hierarchical caste system in India. The entire basement turns into a living and interesting space in which the artist combines video performance with kinetic sculpture and music, alongside artworks inspired by his grandfather’s writings.
The most fascinating exhibition was inside St. Kunigundis Evangelical church in Bettenhausen neighborhood. The exhibiting artist collectives where ATIS REZISTANS and GHETTO BIENNALE from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sculptures made out of found materials and objects were a reminder of the social and political issues that the locals were facing but also symbols of their folk culture and vodou religion. GHETTO BIENNALE was first organized in 2009 based on the question: “What happens when first world art rubs up against third world art? Does it bleed?”. At St. Kunigundis, the two worlds combined without clashing and with no contradictions. The parish has welcomed the artists with arms wide open and they proceeded to install their assemblages of objects found on the nightmarishly littered streets of the Haitian capital city. There was no dissonance between the artworks and the space, they seemed to have been created with the space in mind (although they weren’t) and that is why this was my favorite exhibition of the entire documenta15.
Moreover, a sculpture made of blocks of different shapes and sizes was mounted on the ceiling intending to represent the cacophony from the streets of Port-au-Prince and the upside down representation of the real world was more than effective. You really could feel the weight of the structures while you were walking among the artworks. The special resonance of the space was ingeniously exploited by a sound installation in the old church organ, emitting sound waves in the rhythm of trance music which grew increasingly louder the more time you spent there and finally delivering some powerful booms that could bring your body to a state of mild panic. The room on the right side of the altar held documentary screenings about life in Haiti.
Another unmissable location at documenta15 is Hallenbad Ost (a closed public swimming pool) where you can find the art of Indonesian artist collective, TARING PADI. A scandal erupted in June and made them famous across Germany, when one of their large-size artworks was removed. This sparked a long-lasting discussion - unbalanced by the sensational representation of it in the German media - on cultural memory, protest art and censorship. Wayang kardus, cardboard puppets, used in protests, carnivals and other performances in Indonesia over the past 22 years, were scattered on the lawn of Hallenbad Ost. Inside there were different posters and huge banners from protests against Suharto’s regime and other manifestations for the environment. A cardboard tank was occupying the center of the pool, a reminder of the real potentiality of an armed conflict. The tense atmosphere inside was totally different from the one outside where people were having a beer in the garden and listening to live music.
I had to leave out a lot of the exhibitions and locations of documenta15 in order to write this article. I had no choice but to be selective in a subjective way in order to be able to present the atmosphere at Documenta as concisely and precisely as possible. The only conclusions I am able to draw after the week spent at documenta15 is that I’ve witnessed the largest and most intriguing contemporary art exhibition in my lifetime so far, in a slightly remote part of Germany, in which ideas and results converge in a delicious soup that can be digested regardless of the level of art education you might have and where you can find out about artists from the global south who are not exhibited anywhere else in Europe. Documenta15 is an exhibition where everything makes sense even without prolonged explanations, of cultural continuity and great emotional charge, where art is placed in a different context, away from art markets and fairs, out of which you can emerge with certain tools that are useful for daily life and which makes you want to come back and revisit. I’ll leave you with a series of photos from other locations of documenta15 meant to intrigue you and incite you to find out more on your own.
Photo credits: Sorina Tomulețiu, Camil Băncioiu, Nicolas Wefers, Hichem Merouche, Victoria Tomaschko, Frank Sperling
