documenta12

2007 is documenta-year! The documenta is one of the world‘s most important and interesting exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It takes place only every five years in Kassel, Germany. This year we’ll have the 12th documenta from 16 June to 23 September.

I was at the documenta11 and was rather impressed, especially by some of the works of former documentas which are still present in the city of Kassel, e.g. the 7000 oaks by Joseph Beuys or the huge pickaxe by Claes Oldenburg.

The first issue of the documenta 12 Magazine was presented at the Wiener Secession on Feb 26. “Modernity?” addresses one of the three documenta 12 leitmotifs posed by Roger M. Buergel (the curator) and Ruth Noack: "Is modernity our antiquity?" and deals with the influence of modernity on artists and the question of modernity itself.

The other leitmotifs are: What is bare life? (and explores several dimensions of being), the third one: What is to be done? (this deals with the “educating part” - Artists educate themselves by working through form and subject matter; audiences educate themselves by experiencing things aesthetically; and it deals also with the question of mediating content without sacrificing their particularity).

In an interview in the Austrian daily newspaper “DerStandard” the curator of this year’s documenta, Roger M. Buergel talked today about the different kinds of modernity in different cultures and for fragmented groups in fragmented societies. He gave the example of Moroccan teens in Amsterdam who were excluded from the Anti-American protests because they wanted to burn the flag – on the other hand they are excluded from taking political influence within the structures.