Documenta 14, the most important exhibition of contemporary art in the world, is scheduled to open in Athens and Kassel in 2017, and preparations for the exhibition are currently in progress. documenta 14 was founded by Arnold Bode in Kassel for the first time on July 15, 1955.
Thirteen editions of the documenta have been presented since then. The 60th anniversary of the documenta will be celebrated with an impressive program of accompanying events in Kassel:
On July 15, 2015 will be the official transfer of the Documenta Archive to the documenta und Museum Fridericianum Veranstaltungs-GmbH in a symbolic ceremony. Today the Archive, founded by Arnold Bode in 1961, houses a library on the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and maintains a collection of valuable documents, photographs, and correspondence relating to all previous documenta exhibitions, extensive press documentation, and a progressively growing media archive.
On July 16 2015 will be the opening of Marcel Broodthaers exhibition at Fridericianum (from July 17 to October 11 2015). If you are around Paris don’t forget the great Marcel Broodthaers exhibition held at the Monnaie de Paris until 5 July. In Kassel will be presenting a major survey exhibition featuring works from all of the artist’s creative periods. The exhibition encompasses early sculptures, films, slide projections, prints, and drawings as well as the Section Publicité of the Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (1972), Un Jardin d’Hiver II (1974), Salle Blanche (1975) and Décor, A Conquest (1975). Broodthaers raised fundamental questions about art— about its media, about how the artwork is defined, and about its representation in museums. His works playfully resist definitive art- historical classification and his oeuvre still stands as a persistent critique of the commercializing strategies of the art market today. In an age characterized by our faith in the capacity of visual images to explain scientific and political phenomena, the oeuvre of Marcel Broodthaers, in which the unspoken dissonance of images, words, and meanings becomes apparent, assumes immense power and relevance. “Fiction enables us to grasp reality and at the same time that which is veiled by reality” said the artist.
On July 17 and July 18, 2015 will be the Symposium documenta 1997 – 2017: erweiterte Denkkollektive / expanding thought- collectives at documenta Halle. What are the origins of the theories underpinning the last four documentas and how do we evaluate them today? What thought styles (Denkstile) are at all compatible with the exhibition format? And how are the global aspirations of the exhibitions realised? The notion of what a contemporary art exhibition can and should be has fundamentally changed over the past twenty years. These and further questions will be discussed with the Artistic Directors of the past four editions of documenta and the Artistic Director of the upcoming documenta 14 in dialogue with international guests from the fields of art, academia and theory.
On July 17, 2015 and July 23, 2015 will be the event Alexandra Pirici and Manuel Pelmuş: Public Collection of Modern Art at Fridericianum. Using only a few human bodies, Public Collection of Modern Art traces the significant works and events of the modern period and their resonance in the present. It attempts to appropriate history by taking the works down from their pedestals and de-monumentalizing them, while actualizing and re-contextualizing them at the same time.
On October 30 2015 will be open the UTOPIEdocumenta – Unrealized Projects from the History of the World Art Exhibition, at Stadtmuseum Kassel. Focusing on a previously unexplored dimension of documenta history, the UTOPIE documenta exhibition takes a serious look at the “unfinished” as a genre of art in its own right, presenting the wide range of media in which plans for these projects materialized. Conceptual drafts, sketches, models, and plans…
Last but not least, don’t miss the big party On 19 July!
More than 50 events, including numerous exhibitions, film presentations, performances, discussions, readings and tours. The program also features presentations by a number of former documenta artists—among them Ugo Dossi, Horst Hoheisel, Jürgen Klauke, and Timm Ulrichs—at many project spaces and cultural institutions throughout Kassel.
Check it out the program of 60 Years of documenta – Program here > http://www.documenta60.de
