Documenta's Mission to Explain Modern Art
By R. Jay Magill, Jr. and Tanja Maka
Can the masses appreciate modern art? The Documenta art extravaganza in Kassel is betting they can. For the first time ever, organizers are doing everything they can to help locals to understand the art -- and art-lovers to understand the locals.
Andrea Geyer
Can art be explained? Documenta thinks it can.A ship made out of gas canisters. Rows of wooden chairs. Three orange computer screens. Self-strumming guitars. What do these things mean? And why are they all housed in a giant, corrugated-plastic shack?
Many contemporary art exhibitions are perplexing. And this year's Documenta, which runs from June 16 to Sept. 23, doesn't break the mold. Except for one major exception. Unlike the others that have preceded it, Documenta 12 has a deliberate educational component. The event, which takes place in Kassel every five years, is determined to allow non-experts entry into the hermetic realm of contemporary art.
Through educational programming, guided tours, community outreach programs, three magazines, and, they claim, the art itself, organizers of this year's Documenta aim to enlighten rather than confuse.
"Education at this Documenta is not a service or tool," Ruth Noack, Documenta 12's curator, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It is, instead, an integral part of the exhibition."
This is a radical move for Documenta, which has often been seen by Kasselers in its 52-year history as an elitist ship that docks in the city every five years for 100 days and then departs -- leaving little in its wake aside from millions in city-wide income. Taxi drivers will lament the traffic but condone the extra clients. Many residents will spot pretentiousness without haste. But as Ralf Knecht, a musician and lifelong Kassler, says, Documenta has long since been dubbed by locals as "doggemenda," -- a rendering of the show's name in local dialect that makes a mockery of the international art world.
PHOTO GALLERY: DOCUMENTA 12 SHOWCASES BEST OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (17 Photos)We're the Kids of Documenta
The next 100 days, though, are supposed to be different. In order to achieve its educational, egalitarian ends, Documenta 12 has enlisted the help of a multitude of tour guides (or "mediators") -- an idea from the show's artistic director, Roger M. Buergel, Noack's mustachioed, articulate husband. And they're not solely in the form of starving German college students. High school students will be a part of it, as will younger children. Additionally, people from across the globe, including from South Africa and Australia, will take part thanks to help from the Goethe Institute.
Charlotte Huddleston, a curator from New Zealand serving on the education team, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Yes, the show is a slow burner. This time around, though, it's OK to say that you don't know about something if you don't, rather than make things up. Everything feels more open."
The education team reaches deep into the youth pool, too. For those aged 6 to 11, there's the "Hatching" program, so named because it invites children to draw and make photographs in a quiet area designated to foster creativity. Claudia Hummel, in charge of the program, was elated to receive funding for the entire endeavor from the German Education Ministry. The children's activities aim to involve them in art -- rather than serve as cover for babysitting -- and hopes that youngsters will then ask their parents about what they found interesting, bringing young and old into dialogue.
There are also 60 adolescents, aged 13 to 19, from 12 schools in and around Kassel, that will give after-school and weekend tours, each of which lasts an hour and a half or longer. "Far from being oblivious to art," notes Ulrich Schötker, Documenta's director of education, "high-school students are experts of their own ways of seeing."
Frank Schinski / Documenta
Documenta this year has enlisted the help of children and students to help locals understand the exhibit and visitors to understand Kassel."For me it's been a great experience," says Till Maciejewski, an athletic-built 10th-grader who has been working on his tour since October. "It's more about discussions with people than about art questions," he says, "and I get to talk about the art that I think is interesting, like Juan Davila," a Chilean artist whose work from the 1970s features pornography, bestiality, and other social taboos. "Because my aunt and uncle are also artists, there's family pride to be helping out at Documenta."
Sonja Parzefall, a recent graduate of the University of Lüneburg, in northern Germany, has led the high-schoolers program, which has the official title "Inhabiting the World," since October 2006. "These are not your traditional guided art tours," she says. "It's not an 'art history' education, but rather a way for visitors to begin a discussion about the works themselves. The high-school students have been entirely committed and enthused, even though it can be daunting."
Indeed. Documenta, at a total cost of €19 million, includes over 500 works of art by 113 artists and occupies five buildings, one of which, the Aue-Pavillion, was constructed solely for the exhibit over a sprawling 10,000 square meters (107,640 square feet). As students became increasingly involved in tackling this behemoth, their status in school -- and self-confidence -- changed, too. "One 13-year-old," Parzefall smilingly recounts, "told me that her classmates had made fun of her for joining the artsy Documenta team. Now they are jealous."
The Practice of Democratic Aesthetics
The education offensive is also taking on the adult world. The Advisory Board -- the first ever in Documenta's history -- is a 40-person committee of Kassel residents attempting to fuse the exhibit with the community. Discussion tents, spaces for exhibit goers to try their hand at artistic creation, and a number of excursions in and around Kassel are all part of the package.
Some of the planned events even have a practical bent. Gottfried Schubert, who has lived on a 50-person commune for the past 17 years, will be leading a discussion which will bring the socially disadvantaged together with political elite to discuss practical solutions to economic problems. "We're enthusiastic to have a platform where otherwise unseen citizens will have a chance to voice their opinions about their lives," Schubert says.
It's about time that Documenta's curators are taking account of the community surrounding the show, says Ayse Gülec, education director at a three-decade-old community center and head of the Advisory Board. "Documenta has always said that visitors should experience the world through art," she says. "Well, Kassel is part of the world. And the various ethnic groups at our center are international -- Albanian, Spanish, Turkish, Afghan, Iranian, and about a hundred more."
But are such noble goals really possible to meet? On a recent walk through the exhibit as part of an English-speaking press tour, the German and South African guides seemed befuddled at how not to behave in a "hierarchical" manner, how to debunk notions of "privileged" interpretation, how exactly to open up the "discourses of culture." Especially while standing in front of seven toy tanks that had been deep fried in dough.
"The notion that art can never entirely be explained," Documenta's artistic director writes, "is exactly where art's power lies." It's a powerful sentiment, and the educators and activists involved are anxious to see what occurs in the next 100 days, to see if art's power can truly conquer modernity's load-bearing walls of economic, cultural, and social segregation.
After those 100 days, however, who knows? Asked if she thought Documenta's efforts at inclusion, outreach, and education would succeed in future renditions of the show, civic leader Güleç leaned forward and smirked, "What do you think?"
