The history of documenta

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.

Black and white photo of Arnold Bode. He is standing in an exhibition room and appears to be speaking or explaining something.
Arnold Bode (1955)

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.

A café in the exhibition at the Museum Fridericianum. Paintings by Pablo Picasso hang on the wall.
Exhibition café with prints by Pablo Picasso in the Museum Fridericianum. documenta 1 (1955); © Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025 / Photo: Günther Becker

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.

A person reads something from a piece of paper
Reinhild Kassing

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.

People are sitting at a long table. They speak into microphones.
Reinhild Kassing

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.

Many people sit around a round table.
Reinhild Kassing

In 1997, it was the first time
that a woman became director of documenta.
That was Catherine David from France.