that’s gonna be a tough one. it sounds simple though: “write down your opinion about documenta fifteen”. some time has passed since my return, still i don’t even know where to start. ok, chronology first: 10 years ago i attended dOCUMENTA (13) which was just awesome. it was my first time and, as a result, i had high hopes and expectations for documenta 14 (2017). i eventually skipped the trip, reasons can be read here. it feels like documenta fifteen needs to be seen as something between these two experiences as kind of two opposite poles.
- art as moralist’s gamepad (the bad part / d14 reminiscence)
to be very clear right off the bat: i neither support any form of oppression of minorities nor unjustified (self-)victimisation / martrydom – and i absolutely don’t want to be confronted with any form of politics in any art context. or religion or whatever non-art. i’ll get back to this later on. in my ideal world, all minorities are left alone and leave others alone. these days, living in germany feels much like being constantly pushed along an infinite victim’s-pride-parade. of course there are real victims, undoubtedly so – and they have all my support and compassion. but it’s not always as obvious as in terms of ukrainian refugees and frankly, i am too tired to invest any more of my precious free time analyzing all cases and determining authentic victim-substance. they’re just too many. i never fell for public hyperventilation and hysteria and i never will. 41 year old me proudly slaps 16 year old me on the back for writing “don’t believe the hype” in large letters on his bedroom wall back in the day. most sermons and laments make me yawn instantly and automatically. imho, germany went from being the country of poets and thinkers straight to the country of whingers and complainers and i am still trying my best to not become one of them and generally avoid all this – to find refuges, art being one of the most important.
art should always and unconditionally (be allowed to) exist for its own sake, freed from the ballast of non-artistic theory like politics, religion, economy and stuff like that (those have other stages). with the words of my cherished jonathan meese: “art is the absense of ideology”. from this point of view, documenta fifteen was a serious fail. since ruangrupa are from indonesia, they spare the western visitor well-known western oppressed minorities, miseries and injustices – but then provide a large collection of new and yet unknown oppressed minorities, miseries and injustices instead. i found myself being part of another parade soon, left it with the same automatic yawning and focussed on the real art – which, to anticipate reconciliation, was to be found as well.
- art-art (the good part / d13 reminiscence)
most of the art exhibited at dOCUMENTA (13) wasn’t my cup of tea as well. that wasn’t due to hypocritical sermons and wagging fingers, but simply due to my pretty specific taste. the art that appealed to me was small in percentage, yet enormous in quantity due to the sheer gigantic scale of the whole thing. and that was pretty much the same with documenta fifteen. it just needed me to stop thinking about WHY most art wasn’t interesting to me. simply let the precious art-art do what it does best: disconnect oneself from ratio for a while. and forget about all the rest.
- some more (from the positive side, mostly)
the concept of expanding the exhibition to 32 locations (some of which have never served an artistic purpose) is just awesome and generates memorable contrasts like: tribal african puppets and masks in an abandoned production hall, a collection of cyborg skeletons in an emptied church and a pavillon made of bundles of clothes at karlsaue. such strong and powerful imagery left a solid impression. and oh do i love the fake fried chicken advertisement signs.
the documenta concept offers incredible potential, which in the case of documenta fifteen still left a lot of unused space – in contrast to dOCUMENTA (13). a priori: the extensive absence of media art. i appreciated ruangrupa’s decision, not to invite big names from the artsphere, so there was no personality cult. it was in fact very easy to get in touch with one of the artists (by simply posting a tagged shot on instagram). and finally, unlike the d13, there weren’t many visitors at most locations – which was, to be honest, a true blessing.
- conclusion
at the end of the day, documenta fifteen left this feeling of smooth groundedness. it really disconnected ratio for a sweet while. that’s why i came for, that’s what i got and that’s what counts. definitely worth a trip and again high hopes and expectations for documenta 16 (2027).
skuyovdzhenyy 