KASSEL (dpa) – With a year before the documenta, one of the world’s leading exhibitions of contemporary art, officially gets under way, organizers in its hometown of Kassel in northern Germany are already piecing together what is being billed as the first global art show.
Kassel will stage Documenta 11 from June 8 to September 15, 2002 as the climax or “final platform” of a series of projects taking place at venues all over the world.At conferences in Vienna, New Delhi, in the West Indies and at Lagos in Nigeria, also dubbed platforms, scientists, artists and other cultural representatives will take part beforehand in discussions on complex topics like “democracy unrealized” or “experiments with truth”.It is part of an ambitious plan by Nigerian-American documenta curator Okwui Enwezor to expand the horizons of a show that has transformed this quiet Hesse town into an art mecca every five years since the first documenta was held in 1955.Great things are being expected of the first non-European in charge of the exhibition and many art lovers hope he will succeed in enabling the show to transcend its European artsy roots and become a truly world cultural forum.Enwezor made it clear from the outset that there will be no pavilions specifically dedicated to African exhibits but also criticized what he sees as the dominant Western view of what constitutes art.In assessing other cultures the West tended to see them primarily in terms of their proximity to Western Culture.The organizer of the Johannesburg Biennale lamented that most globally oriented exhibitions of contemporary art were organized along western lines. In order to release Documenta 11 from these fetters, the outcome of the platform discussions around the world will partly determine what goes on display next year.Enwezor is not actually saying yet what visitors to the documenta will be seeing or even revealing any of the exhibitors’ names.The guiding theme at Documenta 11 will be the globalization of communications, the changing role of nation states and that of the so-called Third World.The democracy debate has already been held in Vienna and the theme of violence and reconciliation in countries like South Africa, Argentina and Yugoslavia was on the agenda in New Delhi back in May.Cultural transformation and the encroachment of urbanization are slated for debate in November in St. Lucia and in Lagos in March 2002.Enwezor is unperturbed about fears that his concept may turn out to be too theoretical – a criticism levelled in 1997 at his predecessor Catherine David. The platforms are not supposed to replace art but complement it, said the curator.Art is a key element of intellectual discourse and as such cannot be restricted to simply examining of works at exhibitions and in museums.Enwezor skillfully combined theory and art at a recent spring show in Munich “The Short Century” which focussed on African independence art. What started out as book only resulted in an exhibition and a 500-page catalogue.In an attempt to begin a new era of art appreciation in Germany after the vitriol poured out by the Nazis, painter and art professor Arnold Bode staged a “Presentation of the Art of the 20th Century” in Kassel 1955 as a precursor to the documenta.The exhibition was a big success and from 1972 onwards it has taken place every five years.Catherine David, the French curator of the last documenta, turned the 100-day art exposition into a magnet for visitors – 631,000 of them came to Kassel – and generated a surplus of 1.4 million marks (610,000 dollars), the first in the event’s history. dpa
