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Issue 33 / June 2017 Notes on Curating ONCURATING www.oncurating.org d ocumenta Curating the History of the Present Edited by Nanne Buurman & Dorothee Richter Contributions by Anna Sigrídur Arnar, Angela M. Bartholomew, Beatrice von Bismarck, Nanne Buurman, Anthony Gardner & Charles Green, Ayse Güleç, Kathryn M. Floyd, Walter Grasskamp, Kristian Handberg, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Susanne König, Vesna Madžoski, Nina Möntmann, Philipp Oswalt, Dorothee Richter, Elpida Rikou & Eleana Yalouri, Nora Sternfeld 89 Contents Dorothea von Hantelmann Thinking the Arrival: Pierre Huyghe's Untilled and the Ontology of the Exhibition 02 documenta. Curating the History of the Present GEOGRAPHIES Nanne Buurman & Dorothee Richter 97 Walter Grasskamp INSTITUTIONS Becoming Global: From Eurocentrism to North Atlantic Feedback – documenta 09 as an “International Exhibition” (1955–1972) Kathryn M. Floyd d is for documenta: Institutional Identity 109 for a Periodic Exhibition Anthony Gardner & Charles Green Post-North? Documenta11 and the Challenges 20 of the “Global Exhibition“ Philipp Oswalt Bauhaus/documenta: Orders of the Present 122 Nina Möntmann 25 Plunging into the World: On the Potential Susanne König of Periodic Exhibitions to Reconfigure documenta in Kassel and the Allgemeine the Contemporary Moment Deutsche Kunstausstellung in Dresden: A German-German History of Two Exhibitions 132 Elpida Rikou & Eleana Yalouri 34 Learning from documenta: A Research Project Kristian Handberg between Art and Anthropology The Shock of the Contemporary: documenta II and Louisiana Museum MEDIATIONS AGENCIES 139 Ayse Güleç 44 Learning from Kassel Vesna Madžoski Ghostly Women, Faithful Sons 144 Angela M. Bartholomew 54 Installations Everywhere: Disorientation and Beatrice von Bismarck Displacement in Jan Hoet’s documenta IX “The Master of the Works”: Daniel Buren’s Contribution to documenta 5, Kassel 1972 151 Anna Sigrídur Arnar 61 Books at documenta: Medium, Art Object, Nanne Buurman Cultural Symbol CCB With... Displaying Curatorial Relationality in dOCUMENTA (13)’s The Logbook 165 Nora Sternfeld 76 Para-Museum of 100 Days: documenta Dorothee Richter between Event and Institution Being Singular/Plural in the Exhibition Context: Curatorial Subjects at documenta 5, dX, D12, d(13) 171 Imprint Editorial The documenta Issue documenta: Curating the History of the Present by Nanne Buurman & Dorothee Richter In his text, “Modell documenta: oder wie wird role in West German reconstruction, re-education, Kunstgeschichte gemacht?,” included in a special issue and nation-building, which, after after World War II, on documenta for the journal Kunstforum International the Nazi regime and its infamous exhibitions of that Walter Grasskamp edited on the occasion of so-called “degenerate art” has to be seen in the documenta 7 (1982), he cites documenta as an example context of the Federal Republic of Germany’s of how art history is produced. In it, he not only integration into the Transatlantic West during the describes the ways in which exhibitions contribute to Cold War. In his contribution to this issue, “Becoming the making of art history but also observes a change Global,” Walter Grasskamp, for instance, argues that of heroes from artists to curators, providing a despite ostentatious PR emphasis on internationality, foundational narrative of curatorial and exhibition the first four documentas were in fact quite German, studies that has proven to be extremely influential. In Eurocentric, or later North Atlantic in terms of fact, its English translation, “For Example, documenta, statistics and staging, while he also problematizes the or How Art history is Produced,” published in the notion of national representation. In “d is for docu- anthology Thinking About Exhibitions,1 has meanwhile menta,” Kathryn M. Floyd discusses how the first become canonical itself, so much so, actually, that documenta (1955) was branded in terms of interna- many contributors to our special issue cite it in their tionalism by developing a corporate identity whose essays. Thus, “For Example, documenta” can be taken design features, as she argues, are exemplary of the as an example of how exhibition history is produced. international style with its streamlined aesthetics Considering the fact that he stresses the importance contributing to glossing over ideological discrepan- of installation and provides very convincing examples cies within Western capitalism. As Susanne König’s of how curatorial stagings produce meaning, remark- comparison of the first documenta with the Allgemeine ably little attention has been paid to display in the Deutsche Kunstausstellung (1946) nine years earlier in general writing about documenta.2 This was also Dresden makes obvious, a pluralistic all-German reflected in the proposals for contributions for this selection of abstract and figurative styles that had issue, many of which focused primarily on artistic characterized the “first all-German exhibition” gave contributions or curatorial concepts but—with a few way to an increasing privileging of figurative art in the exceptions—less on the materialization of the installa- East and of non-figurative art in the West of Germany tion of the shows themselves. Nevertheless, it is with the intensification of the Cold War after the extremely important to critically examine the politics founding of the GDR (East German Democratic of display and the discrepancies between curatorial Republic) in 1949. In this light, documenta initiator claims and the realities performed in the shows, not Arnold Bode’s dedication to primarily expressive least because—as many contributors eventually modern art and his art historian co-curator Werner selected for this issue call to our attention—these Haftmann’s promotion of “abstraction as a world claims and performances are usually ideologically language,” a slogan devised for the second documenta, charged, as they have always been informed not only may be read as an ideological affiliation of documenta by artistic trends and cultural developments but also with the “free West,” where artistic liberation from by socioeconomic and geopolitical contexts.3 naturalist representation was considered as an expres- sion of individualism, whereas (socialist) realist art Ideologies and Geopolitics was regarded as “unfree” because it did not cut its ties A number of the contributions dedicated to the early to extra-artistic reality.4 The marginalization of realist documenta editions remind us of the first documenta’s tendencies in the early history of documenta may 2 Issue 33 / June 2017 Editorial The documenta Issue thus also be read as a de-politicization of art, with the newly appointed documenta professor Nora documenta nevertheless serving political functions Sternfeld proposes, in the English version of her despite, or rather because of, this denial of politics. As “inaugural lecture,” a research perspective that is Vesna Madžoski argues in her reprinted chapter situated in medias res, that acts in the middle of things, “Ghostly Women, Faithful Sons,” documenta as a in the post-representational space between represen- spectacle has been a disciplinary institution and tation and presence, between the inside and outside consensus machine, in which women only played a of the institution, assuming a para-sitical position minor role, whereas the men in charge maintained all towards documenta understood as a “Para-Museum authority. According to her, despite challenges from of 100 Days,” which is itself implicated in social student protesters at documenta 4 (1968) or Harald conditions and power relations. In “Thinking the Szeemann’s radical change of focus with documenta 5 Arrival,” former documenta guest professor Doro- (1972), documenta remains an appeasement appara- thea von Hantelmann argues that with his contribu- tus that turns visitors into consumerist subjects even tion to dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), Pierre Huyghe as late as 2007 with documenta 12 taking a more or challenged what she considers to be the “ontology of less explicit feminist stance and reserving central roles exhibitions,” i.e., a modernist teleological notion of for women (so far, it is by the way also the documenta progress and subject-object opposition, that, she with the highest proportion of women artists). explains, is under suspense in “Untilled,” which instead adheres to a post-anthropocentric logic of Methodologies and Epistemologies association, networking, and compostation and thus To come back to the question posed above: What intervenes into the usual fast-forward mode of exhibi- could be the reasons for the lack of attention to tion visits by inviting visitors to linger and get involved display? Surely, access should no longer be a problem in the mattering of the site rather than assuming an since the documenta Archiv’s digitized collections of objectifying critical gaze. In different ways, all three of photographs of most documenta exhibitions are now them thus stress that the polarity of critical distance online. Could the reason be an art-historical method- and affirmative participation, imagined as a binary ology that—despite interventions by museum-, between mutually exclusive positions, is no longer exhibition-, and curatorial studies as well as by visual epistemologically tenable for the study of exhibitions, culture and sociology of art—is still largely trained to or documenta in particular.7 look at clearly bounded individual artworks, verbal documents, or historical contexts, but not as much at If we look at the