dinsdag 2 augustus 2022

fifteen documents and more

 

As for documenta fifteen, well can't say I saw much...

 

Empty Friedrichsplatz dead grass


The controversy had already taken it's toll: the head curator threw in the towel, one artist decided to bail, press having more than one field-day... heat wave slowed the teeming masses to a trickle... or so it seemed with the empty Friedrichsplatz scorching in the sun... clock ticking away time resource and meaning... the venues slightly modified in an attempt to pull them into the public space at large – trying to whittle away the difference between art & life – Flux-like as seen before – as have many of the issues touched upon, but presented differently perhaps, less top down Marxist dialectics and more exotic (Indonesian) names for similar concepts, slightly re-appropriated like the 'ekosistem/ecosysteem' - and yes, the lumbung rice barn – premise is that there is a surplus to redistribute horizontally – anyone who travels around Africa or 'global south' can see USAid, EU and UN food sacks reworked as clothes tents and bedding – but that's colonial charity, not what is wanted here... But one can't help comparing the offerings with the many NGOs vying for funds for all sorts of empowering projects worldwide – And while there are quite a few proposals on how to kick start one's own economy, (virtually if not otherwise) most seem content to blame historical wrongs by, well yes, the north/west... 

 

Neue Halle goes south


Archives are a good start, documentation and contextualization – identify where things have gone wrong and correct them... archives, like libraries need stable environments, time to collate and consider, background knowledge to fit into perspective... we are looking at places of study here – call them universities, - ones that process all information, and not just a selection – for that you need freedom, and that is where the tensions emerge – where is what appropriate and when should an expression be subdued?

variation on 'wir sind das volk'?

They should have left the controversial work and had a decent discussion about its ramifications instead of taking it down and running off – sort of pulled the plug on the whole affair, which now looks more like an adventure holiday with a bad conscience than a real cultural confrontation... especially in the light of the reemergence of a 'European Theatre of Operations' with the first act 'Donbass' already well under way and grain stuck in ships instead of lumbungs...

 

wonder what Spoerri thinks of this


Otherwise right down our alley, having been busy with alternative group-run spaces and fringe socio-cultural programs for ever so long- it has a familiar feel to it, but perhaps victim of its own success and not made for this kind of showcase... more preparation might have helped, but then if organized like a real show beside the point again. 

 

quaint?