Documenta 15 - stimulate or stultify?

 

Documenta 15 is underpinned by the term ‘lumbung’ that is a concept of collective sharing. The term in Bahasa Indonesia refers to ‘a rice barn where a village community stores their harvests together, to be managed collectively, as a way to face an unpredictable future’. ruangrupa an art collective established in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2000 e were invited to make a proposal for the fifteenth edition of documenta’ and instead of integrating ourselves into the long established documenta system we decided to stay on our path…asking documenta to be part of our journey’. 

The impact is obvious; a focus on the global south, on a mapping and exhaustive explanatory process, on works that stimulate and some that stupefy, on trial and error, on a reliance on a handbook for insights and understanding (sold out of the english edition), on a non static exhibition, and on text reliant works. 

Documenta has had many guises over many years from Joseph Beuys at documenta 7 and his refusal to be exhibited in the Fridericianum and instead planted 7000 oak trees in the streets of Kassel that still stand today, to the opium poppy field outside the Fridericianum at documenta 12 by Sanjay Ivekovic that failed to bloom due to the weather, to Marta Minujin’s Parthenon of Books built to scale and consisting of 67,000 books that had ben banned at some time in history, to Ai Wei Wei’s sculpture made out of century old doors and windows of demolished Chinese houses, which when it collapsed in a storm noted that it looked a lot better, and an unauthorised ‘exhibition‘ outside the Fredericianum by artists a opposed to the role of curators! 

Documenta is not for the feint hearted or the art conosieur.  It’s for those who want to see or grapple with what the future holds for art and society and reflect on the failure of society to recognise its failings, inequalities and dysfunction and an art scene captured by the global north that benefits the few.

It was worth the train ride and outside the documenta forums, venues and workshops we met many documenta wanderers from many parts of Europe as confused, frustrated and talkative as us. It is a confluence of art tragics and those who are there for the ride. It turns a small city with its

day to day challenges into an art space covering a myriad of venues some of which seem overwhelmed by the invited artists. 

The Friedrickplatz becomes a hub with out door food stalls and overflowing cafes, restaurants and buskers fill the streets with chit chat and debate. It happens every five years so the locals can get some normality into their lives and ponder a future that seems bleak and overcome by war, climate change and the pandemic. 

Art is not an antidote but at least it provides an expansive canvas to question and debate our lives.  And we were able to bask with the locals in Germany’s win in the EUFA Women’s EURO semifinal to revitalise our efforts on the day 3.

Venice Biennale 2022

The Venice Biennale 2022 presents ‘The Milk of Dreams’ curated by Cecilia Alemani and involves 213 artists from 58 countries, 180 of whom have never had works in an international arts exhibition. It’s an awesome exhibition full of visual surprises and thought provoking works. 

In the 127 years of the Venice Biennale never has there been a majority of women and gender non-conforming artists, ‘a deliberate re-thinking of men’s centrality in the history of art and contemporary culture’. 

The exhibition ‘is not about the pandemic but it inevitably registers the upheaval of an era…arts and artists can help us imagine new modes of coexistence and infinite new possibilities and transformation’. 

The title of the exhibition is from the book  by surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington in which she describes ‘a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination.’ 

‘The Milk of Dreams’ lives up to Carrington’s magical and imaginative world and Alemani’s re-thinking of art and artists. A visual pictorial of the Dreams……a selection.

The Biennale takes places across two distinct venues in terms of place and space: Arsenale and Giardini.

‘The Milk of Dreams’ exhibition and the Participating Country Pavilions sit uneasily together given one is theme based and curated and the other at the whim and leanings of an artist selected by each country’s arts /cultural administrative and arts interests. 

The Biennale straddles these two venues;  Arsenale provides a post industrial environment with its huge spaces and horizontal layout for both the exhibition and the Country ‘pavilions’ and the Cenral Pavilion Giardini a garden setting with a site providing a white walled exhibition space, with rambling rooms and the self styled built and restored separate Country Pavilions. 

The buildings themselves are an introduction to each of the 80 participating countries persona across the two sites. The Country Pavilions do not represent their art but reflect the chosen art……but do provide some insight into the the range of interests, issues and socio-economic politics that inhabit the mind of the artist and the material used to inform the viewer and participant. In the following order: Italy, Belgium, Ukraine, Canada, Latvia, France, Lebanon, Spain, Hungary, Poland. Uruguay.

https://www.labiennale.org/en/venues/arsenale

https://www.labiennale.org/en/venues/giardini-della-biennale

https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022

'Relocating a structure' Maria Eichhorn

The German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale has history and it is being exposed. Artist, Maria Eichhorn, in her work titled ‘Relocating a structure’ has taken on the role of ‘artecheologist’ to reveal a Nazi past that is revealed in her dig into the fabric of the building. Her original idea was to relocate the German Pavilion for the duration of the Biennale and then return it to its site. The space would lead to a reflection on its past and perhaps the role of national pavilions.  

The building was originally a Bavarian Pavilion built in in 1909 and was renamed the German Pavilion in 1912. In 1938 Hitler instructed and over sighted changes that altered its face to the world, adding columns and a design that reflected a fascist aesthetic. He attended the Venice Biennale and opened the building. Its fascist past is reinforced by the removal of Italian Jews from Venice in via staging places to the Santa Lucia Railway station.

Collateral Events

Field - Pedro Cabrita Reis

Outside of the official Venice Biennale program is 'Field' by Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis. This stunning work installed in Chiesa di San Fantin church addresses the ‘field’ between ideas of right and wrong. A space of light. He quotes Rumi to say ‘I will see you there’. He has also made multiple public space works. Check them out at cabrita-field-venice.com 

It’s a work that challenges notions of construction and reconstruction. The artist laid the lighting foundations and covered the entire space with building rubble. The cracks in the rubble enabled the light through and represented faith or hope for the future. Stunning concept and execution. His work sits outside the Biennale as a Collateral Event. 

An Archeology of Silence - Kehinde Wiley

American artist, Kehinde Wiley in ‘An Archeology of Silence’ exposes the ‘unseen members of Black and brown communities all over the globe, by inserting them in the dominant poses drawn from famous compositions of western paining’. It’s an overwhelming depiction of lives that matter and is stunning in its detail. A site and sight that asserts its impact as a Collateral Event to the Biennal.