dOCUMENTA 13: A Review

At the beginning of June, the art world was buzzing about the opening of the large international art exhibition dOCUMENTA in Kassel, Germany.  According to the web site, "The thirteenth edition of documenta involves more than 300 participants. The exhibition in Kassel is presented at eight main venues, with many other projects located at sites throughout the center of the city. dOCUMENTA (13) is physically and conceptually sited in four locations—Kassel, Kabul, Alexandria/Cairo, and Banff."
Obviously, this was a show that I couldn't see in a day, yet I would attempt to see as much as I could in the span of a few hours.  For the span of a few months, dOCUMENTA had rooted itself within the city.  The museums were part of it, parks were part of it, even the train station was part of it.  Art was conceived of as being applicable to any space, and therefore in some ways place became important for the art.

Fridericianum and other museums

The main exhibit space was traditional though, the Fridericianum museum.  This part was one of the best exhibits I've ever seen and also made the case for why museums/galleries are vital for viewing art and why art is relevant to today.  Within this museum, there was an abstract theme that addressed topics of war, destruction, and what comes after, as well as art's role in all of this.  The works were created by artists from different backgrounds and time periods.  The Rotunda area was the focus of this theme, and packed the gallery full with diverse art that often required an intellectual and conceptual rather than a visual reading.  Unlike the other rooms, this one was dense with pieces, and therein lay it's strength: the ability to draw clear connections between artwork and see the artwork as parts of a whole.  Many were interesting by themselves, like photographs of Hitler's apartment, others, like a brick "radio" weren't.  However, seen together, they brought out new levels of meaning.  War-damaged objects from the National Museum of Beirut, ancient Bactrian princess sculptures, and a photograph of a bombed out Vietnamese field all spoke of what is left after war.  
One of my favorite pieces was Michael Rakowitz's "What dust will rise?"  This piece displayed remnants of the Bamiyan Buddhas, books burnt in Kassel air raids, and meteorite fragments in glass cases.  Some of the books had been remade in stone from Bamiyan and lay on glass tables. The bright spacious room, white walls, and glass tables provided space for reflection and contrasted to the heaviness of the stone-recreated books.  Together, this piece also provided commentary on fire and destruction, their remains, and cultural heritage.
Connections expanded to nature and the universe as well.  An attempt to display a meteorite in Kassel led to the exchange "What does a lump of mineral have to do with art?"  A slogan on a welcome mat stated, "The universe, like infinity, can only be seen piece by piece." 
Aside from the rotunda, I liked that most of the artwork was given space, and since most of it was sculptural or installation, it often needed a whole gallery to be viewed.
This exhibit showed the power of the curator to select pieces that give meaning to each other and inspire new thoughts and questions, and the ability of the museum to create an open space for that.  The first, appropriate piece, "Breeze," was simply empty galleries with hidden fans.  It was a great way to begin, clearing the mind and opening it, because your brain was as much involved as your eyes in the Fridericianum.


The other place I devoted most of my time to was the Karlsaue Park.  This part of dOCUMENTA provided a contrast to what I had just seen.  Here the pieces were spread out around the park, some in wooden huts and others sculptural.  The environment became more strongly thematicized. I think that this was a weaker part of the exhibit because the distance between each piece meant that they were often viewed as individual pieces that didn't relate to each other.  Some were clearly well placed in the park environment, and others had nothing to do with that space.  That being said, there were still some clever pieces.  I liked a tent and exhibit on women's cooking in a region in Africa (more activist art,) a brief summary of the history of Europe, and a piece I'd heard much about by Pierre Huyghe, which was an artificially created natural landscape, with a growing garden, concrete blocks, bee hive, ant hill, just a whole mix of growing and reclaiming.

I saw two other parts of the exhibit, but won't go into detail about them.  
Overall, I was impressed with the scope of dOCUMENTA; however, it was both a strength and a weakness.  Different pieces in different places provided so many diverse and interesting perspectives on some of the greater  themes of life.  Yet it could easily grow overwhelming I think, especially were one to really visit every single venue.  And sometimes there were pieces which were just plain fun, like little monster pots or a visual illusion clock.  I liked them, but wondered how they fit in with this particular exhibit.  Probably with enough thought, meaning can also be made out of them, but it also made me question what their role was.  I found real power in the intellectual side of art, but what about pieces that appeal purely to the senses?  I think that this exhibit may have been trying to be too many things at once.  One good thing though was that the definition of "art" itself was both considered loosely and challenged, and proved that it's important for art to take many forms so that it stays relevant and effective.