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Documenta international art show focuses on Global South | Arts | DW

Involve Africa by Involve Africa
June 17, 2022
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Sounds from the streets of Nairobi emanate from a hut at the entrance of the documenta hall in Kassel, Germany. Nearby, an artist has put up a tent that claims to be the embassy of Australian Aboriginal people. This year’s documenta contemporary art show is both unapologetically colorful and very political.

 “We’re taking a trip around the world,” says one documenta visitor — and that’s exactly what the organizers wanted.

Around 1000 artists, primarily from Africa, Asia and Latin America, are taking part in this year’s documenta, which takes place every five years. Their ideas, perspectives and stories will be shaping the city of Kassel in the German state of Hesse for 100 days, from June 18 to September 25.

Traveling around the city and the world

The 32 exhibition venues are spread all over the city. The focus this year is less on individual works of art and more about processes and projects. It’s an opportunity for artist collectives to shine, not big names.

Richard Bell stands in front of a work of multi-colored squares.

Indigenous Australian activist Richard Bell is perhaps the documenta’s best-known artist this year

Documenta 15 was curated by Indonesian artist collective Ruangrupa. They selected participating artists and asked them to address topics such as refugee rights, collaborative participation and the power of communities working together.

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Their guiding principle is called “Lumbung,” and it’s based on an Indonesian concept of a rice barn where surplus harvest is stored and distributed communally for the benefit of all.

Inspired by the concept, the Berlin art collective ZK/U (Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, or Center for Art and Urbanistics) built a boat out of an old wooden gable roof that belonged to the group of artists, architects and curators. The vessel, which is called “citizenship,” is sailing from Berlin to Kassel along Germany’s waterways in a journey that will take 60 days. It’s one of the many unique projects associated with this year’s festival.

  • View of the colorful Ruru house in the city center of Kassel

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    ruruHaus: The ‘living room’ of documenta

    The former department store with its striking facade is the epicenter for artists and visitors alike at this year’s documenta. In the ruruHaus, artist collectives present themselves and events take place. Practical for visitors: From here, all other documenta venues can quickly be reached.

  • Museum Fridericianum in Kassel with black-and-white columns by Dan Perjovschi

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    ‘Lumbung’ in time-honored setting

    The Museum Fridericianum has often served as a central location for documenta. This year, the organizers of the group Ruangrupa redefined the historic building as a “lumbung.” The term refers to buildings in Indonesia that are communal harvest storage sites and important village meeting places. The artists want to meet with visitors here for workshops and discussions, among other things.

  • Installation made of bales of old clothes in front of the Orangerie in Karlsaue Park in Kassel, Germany

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    Old clothes, electronic waste and garbage

    Against the magnificent backdrop of the Orangerie in the Karlsaue Park, this installation draws attention to the dark side of consumer society. The walk-in work “Return to Sender” by Kenyan artist collective The Nest highlights environmental destruction in southern countries caused by the transport of garbage, electronic waste and textiles.

  • A laser installation in Kassel shoots beams of light up into the sky

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    Illumination art in the city

    The “Laserscape” installation at documenta 1977 was the world’s first permanent laser light artwork — and it’s still a nighttime landmark in Kassel. The beams connect the tower at the Museum Fridericianum, the Hercules Octagon and the Hessian State Museum, among other things. Definitely a “highlight” for the night owls among the visitors.

  • The documenta installation 7000 Oaks by Josef Beuys in Kassel shows a row of oak trees with small stone pillars in front of them lining a path

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    ‘7000 Oaks’ for Kassel

    Probably no other documenta work has changed Kassel as permanently as “7000 Oaks: City Forestation instead of City Administration” by Joseph Beuys. In 1982, he tipped 7,000 basalt stones onto a square in the city center. Over the next five years, he moved stone after stone to new locations. At each, an oak was planted, such along this path. Local residents and tourists take pleasure in it.

  • A bronze tree with a granite boulder is surrounded by people in Karlsaue park in Kassel

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    Bronze tree and granite boulders

    The work “Idea di Pietra,” by Giuseppe Penone, also addresses the coexistence of tree and stone. For documenta 13 in 2012, the Italian installed the skeleton of a tree, cast in bronze, in which a granite boulder is suspended. The nine-meter-high (29.5 ft) sculpture was purchased with donations by citizens of Kassel and now adorns the picturesque park landscape of the Karlsaue.

  • Sculpture 'Man walking to the sky' by Jonathan Borofsky in Kassel shows a statue of a man strolling up a diagonal pole in front of a train station

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    The city wants to go to the top

    Over the years some works of art develop a symbolism of their own. The sculpture “Man Walking to the Sky,” by Jonathan Borofsky, is one example. In 1992 it was part of documenta 9, but it remained in Kassel afterward, becoming a symbol of recovery for many citizens at a moment of great change: Kassel had been close to the border between East and West Germany; today it’s in the geographic center.

  • A giant pickaxe rises out of the grass alonside the Fulda River in Kassel

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    New landmark anchored in history

    The gigantic pickaxe is also a documenta relic. Its creator, Claes Oldenburg, was inspired by a pickaxe found near the city’s Orangerie and entertained the idea that the famous Hercules monument in Bergpark Wilhelmshöhre could have thrown it. Thus, for documenta 7 in 1982, Oldenburg created a new landmark: a twelve-meter rendition of the steel implement right on the bank of the Fulda River.

  • The Hercules monument is seen from the backside as it towers above Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    Demigod with a view

    This famous Hercules monument has been attracting visitors to Kassel for much longer than the documenta, which first took place in 1955. High above the city, the 8-meter (27 ft) representation of the demigod has been enthroned on a towering pyramid since the beginning of the 18th century. It looks out over Wilhelmshöhe Palace to downtown Kassel.

  •  A view of the water features in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel shows a cascading waterfall tumbling down steps in a hillside that is crowned by a giant monument

    Art in Kassel, from documenta and beyond

    Water features attract visitors

    The octagonal base upon which the Hercules monument sits is also the starting point of another attraction that drew curious visitors to Kassel long before the documenta: On Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays from May to October, the baroque waterworks flowing down the hillside enchant visitors from all over the world — and have done so for more than three hundred years.

    Author: Martin Koch


The center of the action

The Fridericianum building in Kassel houses archives documenting artistic and political work in various countries via videos, photos, posters and objects.

One of the groups involved is Another Roadmap Africa Cluster, who describe themselves as an international network “of scholars and practitioners of artistic and cultural education who are working in both formal and informal contexts within the African continent.”

“Our message is that Africa has more to offer than the colonial or Eurocentric narrative. We want to take control of that ourselves,” says Lineo Segoete of the group.

On the first floor of the neoclassical building, one can find the “Gudskul,” a living and working space for the collectives. With a little luck, visitors may find them working, cooking, chilling or perhaps singing karaoke.

There’s also artwork on display, like the large paintings by Australian Richard Bell hanging on the walls upstairs. The Indigenous activist is perhaps the best-known artist at this year’s documenta. 

“I want our message to reach the northern hemisphere, the countries that colonized most of the world,” he told DW. “They are the beneficiaries of the plunder. But now comes the time of reckoning.”  Bell’s work often touches on colonial themes and is critical of Western art production.

People stand at the door of a hut with a tin roof by Lazarus Gachanja from Kenya.

Sounds from the streets of Nairobi emanate from a hut with a corrugated tin roof

The path into the documenta hall leads through a tunnel-like structure made of rusting corrugated metal. From here, Lazarus Gachanja of the Wajukuu Art Project blares street noise from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “This is the community, the place we come from,” he told DW. “What you don’t see is the crap that happens to us. Still, we like the street we live on.”

Lazarus Gachanja wears a black t-shirt and stands in front of a tent covered with bamboo.

Lazarus Gachanja from Kenya is one of the artists taking part in this year’s festival

Art as political activism

Inside the hall, two sculptures float belly-up in a cocoon of twigs above a pile of sand that conceals a mirror. The INSTAR group from Cuba document how their country’s government treats critics.

INSTAR founder Tania Bruguera says there are currently some 1,500 political prisoners in Cuba. Their only crime, she says, was to have voiced their own opinion. “We want to make it clear to the world that good weather does not equate to good government,” she told DW. When asked if she finds art a viable means of political struggle, her answer is succinct: “Art is perfect for that, isn’t it?”

A disused indoor swimming pool is home to the work of the Indonesian collective Taring Padi. The group’s work is a retrospective of the last 22 years. Using wall-sized paintings and printed flags with figures and objects, they make a chilling statement on the massacres that dictatorial president Haji Mohamed Suharto was responsible for during the time he led Indonesia between 1967 and 1998. It is estimated that millions of people lost their lives under his regime.

More than a dozen members of the group INSTAR pose for a picture.

In their documenta contribution, Cuban artist collective INSTAR focus on how their government has silenced critics

Courting controversy

It’s all but impossible to bypass the documenta location known as WH22, a former club and bar not far from Kassel’s train station. It is there that the Palestinian group The Question of Funding set up a gallery space, igniting a debate about antisemitism that has overshadowed the documenta up through its opening.

The curatorial team has rejected allegations that the collective invited anti-Israeli and antisemitic artists. The debate has drawn in voices from the highest levels of German politics, with the Central Council of Jews in Germany also weighing in.

Israeli artists were not invited to this year’s documenta. 

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he would address the topic of artistic freedom and its limits in his opening speech at documenta. “Art must provoke dialogue and discussion,” he said in recent days. “But it is just as clear that debates, contributions and messages can also have limits. There is a need to talk about these limits.”

The documenta’s general director, Sabine Schormann, told DW that the antisemitism debate needs to “actually be uncoupled from documenta.” Now is the time for the art to speak, she added.

A sculpture hangs over a mirror that hangs over sand while walls are lined with corrugated tin

This year’s documenta is decidedly political, which is reflected in works by African collective Wajukuu Art Project

Mohammed Al Hawajri is one of the artists in the Palestinian collective The Question of Funding. 

His series “Guernica Gazes” combines images of incursions by the Israeli army into Palestinian territories with classical motives from artists such as Delacroix, Chagall and van Gogh. Al Hawajri’s title references Pablo Picasso’s painting “Guernica,” which he created in 1937 in reaction to the bombing of the Basque city of the same name by Nazi Germany’s Condor Legion at the wishes of the Nationalist Spanish general Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

The many discoveries of the documenta continue in the giant Karlsaue park, with an installation called “Return to Sender” by The Nest Collective, a Nairobi-based group. The giant structure covered with old textiles and electric waste highlights the destruction of the environment and markets in African countries. 

Documenta fifteen ends on September 25. With so much to see, 100 days may not be enough. 

 

This article was originally written in German.





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