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[July 10th 2002]
Documenta
Binding-Brauerei houses the central exhibition area
of Documenta 11 2002.
Documenta 11 - world art in Kassel
Text: Helle Qvistgaard. Photo: Kim Nielsen
Documenta 11
Friedrichsplatz 18 D
Kassel
Germany
www.documenta.de
June 8th - September 15th 2002
Artistic director: Okwui Enwezor
Co-curators: Carlos Basualdo, Ute Meta Bauer, Susanne
Ghez, Sarat Maharaj, Mark Nash, Octavio Zaya.
Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, is open until the 15th of September
2002. The exhibition, which local politicians like to call the worlds
largest and most important, is the fifth platform of curator Okwui
Enwezor's exhibition project. The preliminary four platforms,
which functioned as a run-up to Documenta 11, consisted of a series
of public discussions, workshops, film- and video programs in Vienna,
New Delhi, Berlin, St. Lucia and Lagos.
Even before anyone had seen Documenta 11 it was presumed to be
unbearably political correct and without much of a sense of humour.
But this is not the case. Documenta 11 may not be an easily digested
and entertaining exhibition, and Documenta 11 is a political exhibition,
rich in attitudes but surprisingly free of ready-made opinions and
generalising principles.
Multiplicity, Solid
Sea, 2002.
With the work Solid Sea the Italian artist group Multiplicity
add to a line of art, which makes use of factual incidents as a
point of departure for their work. In a large quiet room there is
a projection of a film shot underwater; recording the fishing boat
Yiohan, which Christmas eve 1996 sank outside the Sicilian coast.
On board the Yiohan were 283 Pakistani and Indian refugees. The
camera registers pieces of wreckage and skeletons. On the opposite
wall of the room is shown a satellite image, where the position
of the wreck is marked. On a video monitor in the middle of the
room one is presented with clear and sober information; telling
the visitor that news of the wreckage was kept quiet for five years.
In the neighbouring room to this quiet darkness there are several
video monitors presenting interviews with family members and others
involved in the Yiohan tradegy. With relatively simple means Multiplicity
documents and uncovers the incident. As a viewer it's like stepping
into a burial chamber, where an unsentimental registration of inhumanity
and cynicism is revealed.
It is not easy. Many artists participating in Documenta 11 have
worked with elements from a cruel reality, which does not limit
itself to the troubles of people in 3rd world countries. Ryuji
Miyanmoto's photographs from the earthquake in Kobe, Japan (1995)
and the German artist group Park's documentary video from
a public demonstration in Hamburg, Germany are examples of this.
One of the really dominant themes that found its way into German
newspapers leading up to the opening of Documenta 11, was the question
of whether problematics of politics will completely displace aesthetics
in contemporary art. After the opening of Documenta 11 everyone
quite agrees that this is not the case.
Dutch artist Mark Manders' complex installation is a rarely
seen private space with simultaneously mundane and unfamiliar creations
presented in a deranged scale.
Mark Manders (detail), installation consisting
of among other things: Reduced rooms, Androids and
Self-Portrait as a Building, 2002.
Annette Messager, "Articulated
— Disarticulated", 2002.
The exhibition is not without humour, but the humour here has a
bite to it. As such the viewer pulls a smile when confronted with
Annette Messager's strange cabinet of soft toys and Halloween
figures hanging from the ceiling. But the smile stiffens when a
dead toy cow passes across the floor making one aware of the many
piles of dead cows that lie spread about in the room. The title
is Articulated - Disarticulated.
Yinka Shonibare, Gallantry
and Criminal Conversation, 2002.
It is much the same situation for artist Yinka Shonibare's
work Gallantry and Criminal Conversation. What at first looks
like a British Grand Tour from the 18th century, soon reveals itself
as something completely different. The dresses, the umbrellas, the
shoes, clothes are all garments and items made out of characteristic
African material, and the headless copulating dolls are coloured.
Alfredo Jaar, Lament
of the Images, 2002.
Where both Messager and Shonibare make use of recognisable
objects, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera's and Alfredo Jaar's
light installations, which both blind the viewer in varying degrees,
are good examples of art that seeks to effect our senses more directly.
Yona Friedman, uden
titel, 2001.
An overall theme is naturally the physical framework of our lives.
There are architectural utopias and investigations to be found in
all of the exhibition buildings.
Yona Friedman from Hungary has, ever since his first visit
to New York, felt uneasy about skyscrapers. Firstly because people
can't easily get out if them if there is a fire. So in the 1960's
he constructed a steel grid like structure which was supposed to
surround the buildings and make fire escape possible. With the events
of 11th September 2001, with the artist's own words; this project
took on a new meaning as a protective fence. The art groups Asymptote
and Simparch should also be mentioned here. They present
really interesting examples of dynamic architecture.
 
(left) Asymptote, FluxSpace 3.0/Mscapes,
2002.
(right) Simparch, Free Basin, 2000-2002.
And now for the videos and film. There are not surprisingly a lot
of them, and many of them are very long. For example you can spend
a whole day watching Ulrike Ottinger's film from among other
places Odessa and Istanbul. Ottinger invites you to a marketplace
in Odessa. Honey, cheese, bread, fish, flowers and meat are available
in enormous amounts. The colures are seductive and the atmosphere
is pleasant. After this we visit a holiday resort and get an impression
of the history, architecture and culture of the area. Then young
women appear, eager to marry a man from America or Europe. With
very subtle filmic effect Ottinger presents the viewer with the
question: Why do all these women want to get out?
Destiny Deacon, Forced into Images,
2001.
Isaac Julian's Paradise Omeros, Kutlug Ataman's
The 4 Seasons of Veronica Read are highly recommendable and
Destiny Deacon's Forced into Images is excellent.
In all fairness it has to be mentioned that apart from these works,
and many other works really worth seeing, there are also appallingly
bad videos at Documenta 11, but these you can simply skip.
Translated by Sophie Pucill
Links:
www.documenta.de
Look up: www.doklomenta.com
A cd-rom with images and details of participating art-work by
order at telephone number: 23 63 52 96, by Kim Nielsen. (MONTANA
have sponsored the production)
Visit our friends at DR-Culture; Danish national
Television
Michael
Tauber on Documenta 11
About Jens Haaning, the only Danish participant at Documenta 11
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