Halftime at documenta fifteen: The first 50 days of the world art exhibition in Kassel were overshadowed by allegations of anti-Semitism against the exhibition. That doesn’t seem to keep visitors away.
Over 410,000 people visited the documenta in Kassel in its first half, which was overshadowed by allegations of anti-Semitism.
“In spite of the corona pandemic, the interim balance of documenta fifteen is roughly the same as that of the most visited edition to date,” the press office of the 100-day world art exhibition announced on Monday. The documenta 14 in 2017 was visited by 445,000 people during the first 50 days. Halfway through documenta fifteen in Kassel, experts are drawing mixed conclusions – not just because of the anti-Semitism scandal.
Art as a collective process
“We are currently dealing with a double drama, on the one hand with the anti-Semitism misery and on the other hand with the aesthetic misery of a programmatically de-art exhibition,” said the Kassel art historian and documenta expert Harald Kimpel. The exhibition is a nuisance if you see it as a documenta. The mere abandonment of the successful model of a solely responsible artistic direction is a step backwards. With the ten-person artist group Ruangrupa, a collective is curating the world art exhibition for the first time. The focus is not on the work, but on art as a collective process.
The documenta forum – a kind of circle of friends and supporters of the world art show – comes to a different conclusion. “Precisely because the documenta fifteen uses a lot of inspiration to artistically work on the issues that are currently evident worldwide, the documenta Forum can well imagine that this world exhibition in particular will open a new page in the history of the documenta, which will cover this globe much more comprehensively than before in the take a look,” said the board. Ruangrupa’s selection has created a complex and stimulating broadening of horizons, the evaluation of which is far from over.
At the same time, both Kimpel and the forum called for the work to be classified. The documenta now wants to meet this requirement – at least as far as some works are concerned. Those responsible announced on Monday that explanations would be added to some works of art. “In order to strengthen documenta fifteen as a place of mutual learning and understanding, the artistic direction is currently adding contextualizations in various formats to several works in the exhibition,” the press release said. This process has already been initiated and will be continued successively. “In addition, the desired bilingualism (English/German) in the exhibition will be pursued further by adding further label and wall texts in German in order to increase the accessibility of the contributions.”
Is the future of documenta up for debate?
Kimpel also sees the Western concept of art, which manifested itself programmatically in Kassel for seven decades, as being unhinged at this documenta. Artlessness had been elevated to a program. Unlike previous editions, with this documenta one does not have to familiarize oneself with a new concept of art, nor work through works by grand masters of aesthetics in order to understand what is being shown. “Instead, you just see what is meant without any symbolic context. If there is bamboo somewhere, then the bamboo is a bamboo.”
For him, the fifteenth edition of the show represents a turning point. It contradicts the traditional documenta idea of reflecting the essence of contemporary art through the subjective perspective of a single artistic director. The crisis is part of the documenta’s way of life – the exhibition always had to be “hard to push through”. “But now this crisis is so severe that you can no longer see it as the elixir of life for the exhibition, but now the future of the documenta is up for debate.”
Even before the opening of documenta fifteen, an anti-Semitism debate about the show had begun. At the beginning of the year, the first voices were raised accusing the Indonesian curator collective Ruangrupa and some invited artists of being close to the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS. Shortly after the opening in mid-June, a banner with anti-Jewish motifs was discovered and taken down. Other works appeared later, triggering sharp criticism.
The general director of the show, Sabine Schormann, resigned from her position a few weeks ago as a consequence of the scandal. In order to process the events, the exhibition will be accompanied by seven scientists in the coming months. Both the management and the artistic direction of the exhibition reject a systematic examination of all works for possible critical content. (dpa)