documenta is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultural Show) which took place in Kassel at that time. It was an attempt to bring Germany up to speed with modern art, both banishing and repressing the cultural darkness of Nazism. This first documenta featured many artists who are generally considered to have had a significant influence on modern art (such as Picasso and Kandinsky). The more recent documentas feature art from all continents; nonetheless most of it is site-specific. The Indonesian art collective ruangrupa serves as documenta fifteen‘s artistic director. documenta fifteen is taking place at 32 locations in Kassel, including the Fridericianum, with the main focus on the perspectives of the “Global South“.
Every documenta is limited to 100 days of exhibition, which is why it is often referred to as the “museum of 100 days”. Documenta is not a selling exhibition. It rarely coincides with the three other major art world events: the Venice Biennale, Art Basel and Skulptur Projekte Münster, but in 2017, all four were open simultaneously.
The name of the exhibition is an invented word. The term is supposed to demonstrate the intention of every exhibition (in particular of the first documenta in 1955) to be a documentation of modern art which was not available for the German public during the Nazi era. Rumour spread from those close to Arnold Bode that it was relevant for the coinage of the term that the Latin word documentum could be separated into docere (Latin for teach) and mens (Latin for intellect) and therefore thought it to be a good word to describe the intention and the demand of the documenta.
Each edition of documenta has commissioned its own visual identity, most of which have conformed to the typographic style of solely using lowercase letters, which originated at the Bauhaus.
A great exhibition, which, as usual, is not free of interesting controversy (at this documenta, the stumbling blocks are the occasionally inadequate explanations and contextualizations) and thus once again makes it very clear why the documenta is the world’s most important exhibition of its kind. Therefore a visit is highly recommended. If a sufficiently large number of visitors have actually seen the exhibition, this could even lead to a very fruitful, society-wide discussion that would reach far beyond the documenta.
