documenta12 ::: back from kassel

Fridericianum © Photo Julia Zimmermann | documenta GmbH

Hey guys (and girls), I'm back from documenta12, Kassel. Totally exhausted and kind of frustrated. It definitely is a hard to understand kind of exhibition which needs a lot of background information. I hardly knew any of the artists and am still wondering wether I'm simply uninformed or Roger Buergel is a strange person who lives in a strange art world, I hope for the latter to be true.


Inside the Fridericianum

We arrived in Kassel on friday noon. After checking into our dorm (which was located near Kassel's main station which is actually called Kulturbahnhof which litteraly means "culture station" where cultural activities like concerts and exhibitions take place) we left for the Fridericianum, one of the exhibition places of the documenta. The documenta's website offers the possibility to download audioguides for your ipod. So if you're interessted in listening to the Fridericianum's introduction please download the mp3 file here.

Iole de Freitas, 2007 © Photo Julia Zimmermann | documenta GmbH

Inside Fridericianum © Photo Frank Schinski | documenta GmbH

The Fridericianum showed only a few artists I really liked/enjoyed. It actually was really hard to discover anything because of the more or less art interesseted mass of people everywhere, plus the really strange exhibition setting: Painted walls (good bye white cube), curtained windows which spend gloomy daylight, light spots. All in all a very tiring kind of installation. The press photos aren't to be taken for granted, hah well understandable isn' it?

Andrei Monastyrski Fountain, 2005 © Photo Egbert Trogemann | documenta GmbH © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007

Zheng Guogu Waterfall, 2006 © Photo: Hans Nevidal | documenta GmbH

My overall impression of this years documenta isn't a positive one. But I still feel kind of unqualified to really criticise the whole concept, so I'll limit my writings to the artists I really liked and understood in the whole context (which aren't a lot!). But what I still don't get: Isn't the documenta supposed to be an exhibition on the most current art of the world? On the art that really drives us NOW? Is the documenta an trendsetter or a trendscout? Or both? What do you think?

Luis Jacob Album III, 2004 © Photo Roman März | documenta GmbH

Sheila Gowda And…, 2007 © Photo Roman März | documenta GmbH