Documenta

recommend:

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Fridericianum

documenta-Halle

View of Kassel

dOCUMENTA (13) is conceived as a series of artistic acts and gestures that are already taking place, as well as the main exhibition in Kassel. According to Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, dOCUMENTA (13) does not follow a single, overall concept but engages in conducting, and choreographing manifold materials, methods, and knowledges.

What is dOCUMENTA (13) about?

Questions of personal and collective emancipation through art emerge in the process of making dOCUMENTA (13) by thinking through a number of composite ontologies that generate paradoxical conditions of contemporary life and artistic production. These include:

• participation and withdrawal as simultaneous modes of existence today;
• embodiment and disembodiment, and their mutual dependency;
• rootedness and homelessness, as a dual condition of subjecthood;
• proximity and distance, and their relativity;
• collapse and recovery, occurring simultaneously as well as in succession;
• the flood of uncontrolled information and the contemporaneous obsession with control and organization;
• translation and untranslatability, and their negotiation;
• inclusion and exclusion, and their connectedness;
• access and inaccessibility, and their co-existence;
• the obsolescence of a Eurocentric notion of art and the paradoxical emergence of practices related to that same notion in the world at large today;
• human life and other forms of life facing multi-species entangled histories;
• advanced science/technology and its alliance with ancient traditions;
• tangible and intangible heritage and their interconnectedness with contemporary culture;
• the specificity of being an artist and the non-specificity of artistic practice.

.

Exploring this set of composite ontologies and considerations, the exhibition will be held in various locations and places, and will include new works by more than 100 artists from around the world. In some cases, these will be presented as parts of projects with other artists, agents, or persons active in cultural fields including science and literature. Furthermore, a number of historical artworks will be exhibited in these interrelated ideas, conversations, and parallel stories. As a prelude to the exhibition, and as a part of dOCUMENTA (13), a number of public activities have already begun, such as such as a conference in Turin in September 2009; the AND AND AND projects, ongoing since June 2010; the installation of an artwork by Giuseppe Penone in June 2010 in the KarlsAue park; and the publication of an artist’s book by Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg, The Campo del Cielo Meteorites – Vol. I: El Taco in September 2010.

Curatorial Team and Process

dOCUMENTA (13) is being planned by artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev with a number of agents, advisors, and artists. Throughout 2009 and 2010, Christov-Bakargiev traveled and lectured widely, building up a group of people with whom the process is shared. More than half of the participating artists have already been invited and are preparing projects for dOCUMENTA (13).

The dOCUMENTA (13) Agents contribute in various ways, and have different degrees of engagement. Some work more closely and consistently, others more loosely and occasionally, so as to create a generative process that is organic and affective, open to change. The Agents may increase during the upcoming years, and constitute an unstable curatorial entity. "In small systems," states Christov-Bakargiev, "an agent acts by proxy, and chooses among a number of alternatives, so that agency is delegated, thus implying an element of uncertainty through which the system works. An agent, in biology, precipitates a reaction, and in fiction, an agent suggests someone who is hidden or undercover, never fully revealing identity. Agere, in Latin, is to act." Currently, the Agents are Leeza Ahmady, Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Sunjung Kim, Koyo Kouoh, Joasia Krysa, Marta Kuzma, Raimundas Malašauskas, Chus Martínez, Lívia Páldi, Hetti Perkins, Eva Scharrer, Kitty Scott, and Andrea Viliani.
>> Biographies

The dOCUMENTA (13) Honorary Advisory Committee brings together a number of intellectuals and practitioners from various fields, including art, anthropology, biology, quantum physics, philosophy, literature, and archeology. Their specific knowledge and points of view provide a wider context on culture in the world today and inform the processes of thinking and acting of dOCUMENTA (13), within which artistic practices and contemporary art, emerge. Currently, the Honorary Advisory Committee is made up of Mario Bellatin, Iwona Blazwick, Ali Brivanlou, Donna Haraway, Salah Hassan, Pierre Huyghe, Michael Petzet, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Michael Taussig, Jane Taylor and Anton Zeilinger.
>> Biographies

(From a press information, published on 29 October 2010.
complete text, including print version)

Organizer:

documenta und Museum Fridericianum Veranstaltungs-GmbH

Friedrichsplatz 18
34117 Kassel
Germany

Tel.: +49 561 70 72 70
Fax: +49 561 70 72 739

Email: office@documenta.de
Website: www.documenta.de

Press contact:
press@documenta.de

See also:

Documenta 12, 2007
16 June - 23 Sept. 2007, Kassel, Germany. Artistic director: Roger M. Buergel. Curator: Ruth Noack. Aprox. 110 participants.

Documenta 11, 2002
8 June - 15 Sept. 2002, Kassel, Germany. Artistic Director: Okwui Enwezor. Co-curators: Carlos Basualdo, Ute Meta Bauer, Susanne Ghez, Sarat Maharaj, Mark Nash, Octavio Zaya. 118 artists and artist groups.

Documenta 10, 1997
21 June - 28 September 1997. Artistic Director: Catherine David.

Recommend this page

© Copyright:
All contents on this website are protected by copyright.

Newsletter:
To keep informed about new contents in Universes in Universe, please subscribe to our free Newsletter

You can also connect with UiU:   

Documenta