documenta

documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH is a non-profit organization supported by the City of Kassel and the State of Hesse as shareholders.

The company organizes and realizes the periodic documenta exhibitions and operates the Fridericianum, the documenta archiv, the documenta Halle and the International Friends of documenta. Under the umbrella of documenta gGmbH, the individual institutions realize exhibitions and events and research, communicate and archive the knowledge produced in the context of documenta.

What began in 1955 in the Fridericianum, at that time still alongside the Federal Garden Show, is today a series of exhibitions of contemporary art that attracts worldwide attention. Founded by Arnold Bode, documenta opened for the first time in Kassel on July 15, 1955. A total of 15 editions of documenta have taken place since then. documenta 16 is currently in preparation and will open in Kassel in 2027.

In 1955, the Kassel painter and academy professor Arnold Bode attempted to bring Germany back into a dialog with the world after the end of the Second World War through a "presentation of the art of the twentieth century" and to include it in the international art scene. With the help of the "Gesellschaft Abendländischer Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts e. V.", which he founded, he presented Classical Modernism, which had been defamed as degenerate by the National Socialists, in the initially provisionally renovated Museum Fridericianum.

An enormous backlog of information prompted 130,000 visitors to come to Kassel for this exhibition, which was both a retrospective and a forum for contemporary art. Encouraged by the unexpected success, Bode planned a second exhibition for 1959 and thus installed the exhibition cycle of the Kassel documenta, which has been organized since 1959 by a limited liability company with the shareholders City of Kassel and the State of Hesse. Until documenta 4 in 1968, Arnold Bode, together with art historians such as Werner Haftmann, Will Grohmann, Werner Schmalenbach and Max Imdahl, directed the exhibition, which increasingly became a seismograph of current art developments. The Nazi past of some of these protagonists, especially Werner Haftmann, is the subject of scholarly debate at documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and its institutions.

In its respective exhibitions and artistic practices, documenta reflects the political and social events of the time. The influence of art historians born before the Second World War on documenta and the reception of art in the post-war period ended in 1972 with a generational and structural change: the Swiss Harald Szeemann was appointed "General Secretary" of documenta 5 by an international jury. Since documenta 10, a newly composed selection committee has appointed a new artistic director for each exhibition on behalf of the supervisory board of documenta gGmbH. Influential personalities from the international art scene have subsequently taken on the role of curating a documenta exhibition on the basis of their individual profile:

documenta 6 (1977) - Manfred Schneckenburger

documenta 7 (1982) - Rudi Fuchs

documenta 8 (1987) - Manfred Schneckenburger

documenta 9 (1992) - Jan Hoet

documenta 10 (1997) - Catherine David

documenta 11 (2002) - Okwui Enwezor

documenta 12 (2007) - Roger M. Buergel

documenta 13 (2012) - Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

documenta 14 (2017) - Adam Szymczyk

documenta 15 (2022) - ruangrupa

documenta 16 (2027) - Naomi Beckwith