by Corinna Kirsch and Anastasia Tuazon on June 9, 2017
You don’t need to go to Kassel, Germany to know that the world seems on shaky ground. But this year’s documenta exhibition, “Learning From Athens,” nails home that idea, nonetheless. That’s quite intentional, given that documenta 14 artistic director Adam Szymczyk, along with a team of more than a dozen curators, chose to stake out a markedly “political” point of view. Though the word “political” can refer to pretty much anything or nothing when it comes to curation, Szymczyk and team have carved out a specific focus: the local is the global. And right now, documenta envisions that the world is in need of being rebuilt entirely—from the ground up.
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by Paddy Johnson on May 11, 2017
Today we spent the majority of our time looking at the Pavilions and we’ll be spending much of tomorrow similarly. Overall, there seem to be fewer people visiting the pavilions and Biennale this year—as evidenced by shortened bathroom cues and the ability to get a cup of coffee in less than hour. It’s hard, though, to discern the reasons for this. It’s not like anyone knows in advance what the shows (or weather) will be like. Still, I wondered if the poor quality of this year’s biennale might have depressed some enough that they took the day off. And perhaps the Americans here are too worried about the President’s recent firing of FBI Chief James Comey to focus on art? I know it’s an issue for me as well as many others I’ve seen over the last two days.
As for the pavilions, it’s a mixed bag—some good, some bad, and some stinky. I mean that literally. At least three pavilions this year need stench warning signs for those with allergies.
I’ll be discussing a lot of the work in greater depth in a separate post. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of what we saw this afternoon.
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