Easy language
How documenta started
More than 80 years ago, the Nazis ruled Germany.
That was a certain group of people.
Under the Nazi rule,
the Germans committed many crimes:
They killed a very large number of people.
Many books and works of art were forbidden.
And Germany started a war against many other countries.
This war is called World War 2..
World War 2 and the Nazi rule ended in the year 1945.
Even after that, Germany had many serious problems.
And there were also several problems in art:
Germans had been forbidden
to view many works of art
during the Nazi rule.
As a result, many people in Germany
knew only little about art.And artists from Germany
did not work much together
with artists from other countries.
In the year 1955,
Arnold Bode wanted to do something
about these problems.
He was a painter and an art professor in Kassel.
His idea was to start a great art exhibition there.
The title of this art exhibition should be: documenta.
An art professor is a person
who knows very much about art.
They usually work at an art college.
That is a special school
where people can learn more about art.
The first documenta in 1955
At documenta, many different artists were able
to show their works.
They were also supposed to show works
that had been forbidden
during the Nazi rule.
This was how Arnold Bode wanted to help:
the people of Germany to learn more about art
and German artists to work together
with artists from other countries again.
And so, the art exhibition documenta took place in 1955.
During that time, many works of art were shown
in the Museum Fridericianum.
The Museum was still broken
because it had been bombed in World War 2.
A very large number of people visited documenta.
They came there to see many works of art
from the past 55 years.
These were works of art:
by several important groups
and by several important artists.
For example: Pablo Picasso or Paul Klee.
The second documenta in 1959
Arnold Bode was very surprised and glad to see
that so many people had visited documenta.
Soon he had a plan:
He wanted to put on documenta
for a second time after 4 years.
That would be in the year 1959.
This was how Arnold Bode decided
that documenta should take place every 4 years.
Later, it was decided that it would be every 5 years.
Since 1959,
a special company has taken care of documenta.
This company is called:
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH.
The city of Kassel
and the German federal state of Hesse
are the company’s shareholders.
Shareholders are people or groups of people
who own something.
That can be a company, for example.
The history of documenta until 1968
Arnold Bode remained in charge of documenta
for several years.
Up to documenta 4 in the year 1968,
he worked together
with various art historians.
For example:
Werner Haftmann,
Willi Grohmann,
Werner Schmalenbach
and Max Imdahl.
Over the years,
documenta grew ever more important
as an art exhibition.
People came there to see works of art that were:
very new,
important
and exciting.
Art historians are people
who know much about the history of art.
They know when an artist made a certain painting,
for example.
The history of documenta since 1972 and after
In the year 1972,
Harald Szeemann became the new director of documenta.
He had many new ideas
as to how the team of documenta should work.
Since then, a special jury has been a part of documenta.
In this jury, people from different countries work together.
They appoint a new director
for every new edition of documenta.
This task is given to them by the supervisory board.
A jury is a group of people that decides something.
For example:
The artists for the next documenta
or the best film of a year.
A supervisory board
is a certain group of people
in a company, for example.
The job of this group is:
to check if the company does good work
or to make important decisions.
In 1997, it was the first time
that a woman became director of documenta.
That was Catherine David from France.