Adam Szymczyk and documenta 14

Documenta as a guest in Athens

Documenta 14 was not only aimed at an audience interested in art, but above all at intellectuals who were prepared to accept written material which often only stands on the periphery of the pictorial arts. Clearly not much remains from the original plans to create a close contact with the grassroots movements and artistic networks in Athens, from which Szymczyk and his team wanted to learn. In an interview with the arte tv magazine metropolis, Iliana Fokianaki, the founder of the Athens state of concept (a non-profit project), said that: “There was no real dialogue with the local scene although we were all very excited about it. I think that this has been one of the main problems to date, that there has been no real dialogue between documenta and the local artists”. Indeed, the painter and installation artist, Alexandros Tzannis, whose works are currently being presented there, and have also been presented in venues like the Benaki Museum in Athens and the Berlin Künstlerhaus Bethanien, complained that the makers of Documenta had not even seen his exhibition. The curator of documenta 14, Pierre Bal-Blanc, who moved to Athens three years before the opening and accompanied the construction of the exhibition in the EMST, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, said that the general public had been scarcely aware of the preparations for the exhibition. The Athens arts reporter, Selana Vronti, added: “Many people here know nothing about the documenta and what is happening here, but the closer the opening comes the more they will learn about it. At the moment they regard the documenta as an alien body in the city. Other people regard it as colonialist and imperialist.”[22]

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur Szymczyk explained that the working title “Learning from Athens”, did not refer to the art scene there but more to the situation of the common folk. “Of course we can be accused of doing too little to include the local art scene. But we were not so much interested in the arts scene in Athens as the city as a living organism. And that transcends contemporary art. Athens does not stand for itself alone, but stands for other places in the world like Lagos and Guatemala City. They are just as much here in our heads. The challenge of linking ourselves to the art scene and Athens would have been too small for this documenta. And if anyone feels let down they should know that our exhibition never wanted to represent the art scene in Athens. Other people should do that. If people here do not feel represented enough then they should think about how to get their voices heard more audibly.” [23]

However, there is no doubt that documenta 14 has enriched the cultural scene in Athens. It does not take place in a central location but in venues like the Greek Film Archive, in theatres, concert halls, parks and historic places like the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. Countless public programmes under the title “The Parliament of Bodies” are included in the exhibition. Their performative structure comprises performances, theatre, music, ballet, sound art, readings, as well as solo actions, group and participative actions: they not only question the traditional division between exhibitions and their accompanying programmes, but also undermine the division between theories of cognition between the North and South, between normative thinking and subjugated forms of knowledge like hierarchisation by gender, sex, origin, obstructions and their removal, as well as by social class. As the exhibition flyer puts it: “How do we create a critical agency during a major exhibition within a neo-liberal economy? Can a museum resist its own colonial and patriarchal regimes? Can the area of tension between Athens and Kassel be used as a critical space to sketch out a cooperative artistic and activist projects beyond the framework of nation states and businesses? We shall fail. But not for lack of trying”