Following an invitation to participate in the "documenta 12 magazines" (below "DM") project, I spent about a week in Kassel. Concretely speaking, I attended one of several weekly blocks of presentations by representatives of magazines from around the world (more than 90 in total over the entire event period of 100 days). Introduced during my stay (7/24-28) in public lectures and discussions closed to the public were "A Prior" (Belgium, main presenter from Lituania), "Frakcija" (Croatia), "LTTR" (USA), "Maska" (Slovenia), "Performance Research" (UK), "Valdez" (Columbia/Germany), "Walking Theory" (Serbia), and "ART iT" (Japan). As you can see, many of the participants came from Balkan states. The majority of the partaking magazines were specializing in theoretical, performing arts-related topics. In my own presentation I showed DVDs of Takamine Tadasu’s "Kimura-san (Mr. Kimura)", "Motto Darwin" and "Aromaroa Erogueroe", as well as his artwork for Terada Misako’s "Aion". All in all, the presentation was fairly well received.
This year’s Documenta is following three leitmotifs: "Is modernity our antiquity?", "What is bare life?" and "What is to be done? (education)". The (more or less) hidden messages behind these are "anti-globalization", "anti-market supremacy", and "down with hierarchical orders". With the exception of such celebrities as Gerhard Richter and the late Agnes Martin, there are almost no superstars from the realm of art at this Documenta. I also looked in vain for up-and-coming young artists the art circles are recently talking about, as I know it from Basel and other art fairs, and international art shows like the Venice Biennale. In addition, the displays are put together in an extremely offhand manner. Most of the exhibited works come without any explanation that would help understand their meanings, and mostly even without indications of the respective creator’s nationality. But artistic director Roger M. Buergel and curator Ruth Noack (Buergel’s wife) certainly won't care about such pro-market/gallery criticism as "The worst art show ever" (Richard Dorment in The Daily Telegraph, June 19). In an interview with "Art Review" magazine prior to the opening (April '07 issue), the pair claimed, "We are doing this exhibition for the artists" and "The people have to make it meaningful themselves", so they seem to be quite convinced of what they're doing.
At the "documenta-Halle", one of the venues, a stuffed giraffe is being displayed without any explanatory note, while at Schloss Wilhelmshoehe — and again without explanation — Katsushika Hokusai’s "Banshoku zuko (Designs for Artisans)" (1835) is exhibited next to European modern painters. As I learned later from the catalogue, the giraffe was originally from a zoo on the west bank of Palestine, and died after getting into a panic when Israeli troups invaded the area. About Hokusai I'm not perfectly sure, but that display is perhaps a hint at the proximity of design beyond mere functionality to the realm of art. Anyway, looking at the event at large, it does seem to be carrying such slightly, ahem, outdated banners as "glorification of the variety of cultures", "criticism of colonialism and post-colonialism", "emphasis on physicality", and "support of feminism". But as none of these is explicitly formulated, my ideas remain speculations that might as well be totally wrong.
What’s interesting is the great deal of attention that’s being paid to non-Western (European) countries. Like at Charles Merewether’s Sydney Biennale 2006, there aren't many participants from the USA and West Europe, but instead a great number of artists from Asia, Africa, Middle East, East Europe, South America were invited. Characteristic of the event, though, is the fact that visitors don't get a clue about the selection criteria. While Chinese Ai Weiwei’s terrific plan to send 1001 Chinese to Kassel for a short-term stay may still be approvable, I can't say that about the Japanese representation: Aoki Ryoko, and the late Gutai group member Tanaka Atsuko. Indian Atul Dodiya and Malaysian-Australian Simryn Gill are contributing good works, but questions like "Why these two?" and "Why these works?" remain unanswered. Noticeable is also the ignorance of the western press of artists from non-western countries. With a few exceptions, such as Holland Cotter, who called Ai a "figure of Warholian celebrity in China" in his article in The New York Times, I'd say those journalists are even lacking the most basic knowledge.
In the end, I suppose the keyword behind the whole event is "Europe". Buergel and Noack, both born in 1960, don't try to hide their empathy for the May '68 revolution. The disorder and demolition of values, and negation of the preceding generation are the first propositions, so it’s only natural that unknown artists without any market prospects were chosen to partake, the festive character of the Venice Biennale abolished, and exhibits arranged randomly and without spending a thought on visitor-friendliness. For an international event like Documenta, which has been striving to be political and innovative right from the moment of its establishment, that’s probably not even a thing that deserves criticism. But like the May revolution in France, that eventually failed to really hook up with the coinciding Chinese Cultural Revolution, with its use of the "non-western" sphere as a mere tool to advocate anti-globalisation, this Documenta failed to testify the makers' sympathy for the non-western part of the world. EU members and future candidates in the eastern part of Europe are comrades, but Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America are not. The same rule I would dare say applies also to members of the western press and the feelings they base their articles on.
And it’s just the same with DM, too. Vice-president Georg Schoellhammer chose from the European-American realm mainly independent papers, while such big names as "Art in America", "Artforum", "Flash Art" or "Frieze" were intentionally rejected. Furthermore, the lineup included not only magazines dedicated to visual and plastic art, but also those dealing with performing arts, philosophy, literature, and hard-line journalistic papers such as "Le Monde diplomatique". As far as participants from the non-western world are concerned, selection criteria were not necessarily clearly stated (ART iT, for example, is different from most of the other participating media in that it is neither a leftist nor a doctrinal, not even an opinion-making publication). It’s certainly not exaggerated to assume that the organizers probably wanted to display with this Documenta their "attention and respect of the non-western sphere" as a mere cultural-relativistic excuse.
Ten years ago, when Catherine David curated the Documenta 10, one of the highlights was a 100-day lecture marathon with participants from various countries. On the first day, there was a lecture by the now deceased Edward W. Said. His primary work "Orientalism" is a tome in which Said criticizes the biased historical image the western world has developed of the "East" — the Arabian and Islamic world in particular. The "East" he is talking about is unmistakably the "non-western world". To me it did not look as if the Documenta/DM organizers have processed and succeeded to Said’s criticism of ethnocentralism. On the other side, this could apply also to us "non-Westerners". During my five days in Kassel I made the painful observation that cross-cultural understanding and exchange are complicated matters.
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO