documenta 4

Poster for documenta 4 from 1968 with a large red "4" in the upper area and a blue, mirror-inverted "a" in the lower area on a white background. To the right, multilingual text on the exhibition: "4th documenta Kassel '68", including information on the date, location and content of the international exhibition in German, English and French.
Exhibition poster documenta 4 (1968)

International exhibition

Artistic Direction

Arnold Bode

Venues
Museum Fridericianum, Orangerie, Karlsaue, Galerie an der Schönen Aussicht
Artists

150

Visitors

207.000

Budget

2,817,000 DM

The last documenta, for which Arnold Bode was mainly responsible, had the somewhat strained, youthful slogan "The youngest documenta ever". A significantly rejuvenated documenta Council (including Jean Leering from the Van Abbemuseum) was to bring the "International Exhibition" in Kassel closer to the pulse of the times in 1968. Werner Haftmann, one of its "fathers", was no longer there; Will Grohmann left with him, later Werner Schmalenbach and Fritz Winter also left.

After the retrospective orientation of the 1955 documenta and the connection to the international art scene four years later, a fundamental reassessment of the position seemed overdue at the latest after the third edition. After some internal quarrels, a team of 26 people was now to decide on the selection of artists in a grassroots democratic manner - for the first time not from a secure historical distance, which would have been accompanied by a latent authoritarian art-historical evaluation, but consistently committed to the present, i.e. the four years since the last documenta.
Many works of art were created shortly before the opening of the exhibition or were even produced especially for it - a trend that was to continue. Now, in 1968, Pop Art arrived somewhat belatedly in Kassel on a grand scale, as did Color Field Painting, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Op Art and Minimal Art.

Impressively staged over two floors in the stairwell of the Rotunda, James Rosenquist's Fire Slide (1967) went down in the visual memory of documenta 4. Roy Lichtenstein's Big Modern Painting (1967), Tom Wesselmann's Great American Nude No. 98 (1968) and Robert Indiana's The Great Love (1966) in the main hall of the Fridericianum as well as Claes Oldenburg's Giant Poolballs (1967) in the Galerie an der Schönen Aussicht also confirmed the slogan "Seize matters" in their titles. But Robert Morris' L-Shapes (1967), Sol LeWitt's room-filling 47 Three-Part Variations on Three Different Kinds of Cubes (1968), as well as the paintings by Barnett Newman (Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II (1967)) or Morris Louis also impressed with their imposing formats.

A meter-high, round sculpture stands on the green area by the orangery
Christo, 5450 m cubic package (1967/68) Photo: Stadt- und Kreisbildstelle Kassel

With 51 artists, art from the USA made up around a third of the entire exhibition, earning documenta 4 the nickname "Americana". In 1968, the year of student protests and anti-Vietnam demonstrations, this triggered a strong backlash - even though the demonstrations in Kassel were relatively harmless compared to those at the Venice Biennale of the same year: students with red flags disrupted the opening speeches on Friedrichsplatz, and the press conference in the morning of the same day was successfully transformed into a happening by a group of artists led by Wolf Vostell and Jörg Immendorff.

Among other things, the activists protested against the complete absence of the current trends of Fluxus, Happening and Performance in the official exhibition. In fact, the omissions of documenta 4 as far as the German art scene was concerned were glaring in comparison to those in the USA - although concept art and performance were missing here, the important representatives and trends were present in the field of painting and sculpture as well as with environments by Ed Kienholz, Robert Rauschenberg and George Segal.

Joseph Beuys was represented with a room installation, but otherwise the selection of German artists, including Horst Antes, Joseph Albers, Erwin Heerich and Richard Paul Lohse, proved to be less innovative - artists important for the 1960s such as Thomas Beyerle, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Imi Knoebel and Reiner Ruthenbeck were missing, not to mention Fluxus and Happening. The fourth documenta also underperformed in terms of the presence of positions by female artists: with Jo Baer, Marisol, Louise Nevelson and Bridget Riley, there were just four women among the 150 artists.

In the outdoor space, the documenta ventured out onto the Karlswiese for the first time with sculptures, which were displayed extensively - primarily with more traditional, semi-abstract sculptures. Christo's (Jeanne-Claude was not yet named as a co-author at the time) spectacular air cushion 5600 Cubicmeter Package (1968), which at least introduced a new approach to the concept of sculpture, was particularly memorable. After several failed attempts, the helium-filled tube finally proved its stamina and rose a proud 58 meters phallically into the air (which earned it various obvious nicknames among the people of Kassel).

A novelty with socio-political aspirations was Bazon Brock's school for visitors, in which he used his technique of "action teaching" to make the changing references to reality in contemporary art comprehensible to a wide audience. With his performative-didactic act of art mediation, Brock had a lasting impact on the mediation claim of the subsequent documenta exhibitions.

Two people are standing in front of a wall. Several works of art are hanging on the wall. People are looking into the room from above.
Museum Fridericianum: Tom Wesselmann, Great American Nude No. 98 (1968), Mouth No. 15 (1968) © Tom Wesselmann/VG Bild-Kunst; Richard Smith, Second Time Around 1-5 (1967); Roy Lichtenstein, Yellow Brushstroke II (1965), © Roy Lichtenstein/VG Bild-Kunst; Escobar Marisol, The Dealers (1965/66), Couple (1965/66); Robert Indiana, The Great Love (1966), © Robert Indiana/VG Bild-Kunst; Larry Poons, One Credit (1967), © Larry Poons/VG Bild-Kunst; photo: Hans-Kurt Boehlke
Wall with text. On the left is a person spraying an arrow on the wall with a can of paint.
Bazon Brock, Besucherschule (1968) Photo: Hans Puttnies
Sculptures stand close together in the room. Colorful pictures hang on the wall.
Museum Fridericianum: Sol Lewitt, 47 Three-Part Variations on Three Different Kind of Cubes (1968) © Sol LeWitt/VG Bild-Kunst; Kenneth Noland, Open End (1967), Date Line (1967) © Kenneth Noland/VG Bild-Kunst; Barnett Newman, Voice of Fire (1967) © Barnett Newman/VG Bild-Kunst

Artists

a

  • Albers, Josef
  • Alviani, Getulio
  • Andre, Carl
  • Antes, Horst
  • Anuszkiewicz, Richard
  • Arakawa, Shusaku
  • Arman
  • Artschwager, Richard

b

  • Baer, Jo
  • Baldaccini, César
  • Bell, Larry Stuart
  • Berns, Ben
  • Beuys, Joseph
  • Bladen, Ronald
  • Brüning, Peter
  • Bury, Pol

c

  • Calderara, Antonio
  • Camargo, Sergio de
  • Caro, Anthony
  • Castellani, Enrico
  • Castillo, Jorge
  • Chillida, Eduardo
  • Christo
  • Chryssa, Varden M.
  • Colombo, Gianni
  • Cornell, Joseph

d

  • Davis, Ron
  • Dekkers, Ad
  • Demarco, Hugo
  • De Maria, Walter
  • Diller, Burgoyne
  • Dine, Jim
  • Di Suvero, Mark
  • Dobes, Milan
  • Dubuffet, Jean

e

  • Engels, Pieter
  • Ernest, John

f

  • Fahlström, Oyvind
  • Flavin, Dan
  • Fontana, Lucio
  • Fruhtrunk, Günter

g

  • Geiger, Rupprecht
  • Geldmacher, Klaus & Mariotti, Francesco
  • Gerstner, Karl
  • Gnoli, Domenico
  • Goeschl, Roland
  • Golden, Daan van
  • Graevenitz, Gerhard von
  • Graubner, Gotthard

h

  • Hains, Raymond
  • Hamilton, Richard
  • Hauser, Erich
  • Heerich, Erwin
  • Held, Al
  • Higgins, Edward
  • Hill, Anthony
  • Hockney, David
  • Hoyland, John

i

  • Indiana, Robert
  • Irwin, Robert

j

  • Jacquet, Alain George Frank
  • Jensen, Al
  • Johns, Jasper
  • Jones, Allen
  • Judd, Donald

k

  • Kadishman, Menashe
  • Kampmann, Utz
  • Kelly, Ellsworth
  • Kienholz, Edward
  • King, Phillip
  • Kitaj, R. B.
  • Klapheck, Konrad
  • Klein, Yves
  • Kolář, Jiří
  • Kosice, Gyula
  • Krushenick, Nicholas

l

  • Le Parc, Julio
  • LeWitt, Sol
  • Lichtenstein, Roy
  • Lindner, Richard
  • Lohse, Richard Paul
  • Lo Savio, Francesco
  • Louis, Morris

m

  • Malaval, Robert
  • Manders, Jos
  • Manzoni, Piero
  • Mari, Enzo
  • Marisol (Escobar, Marisol)
  • Martin, Kenneth
  • Mavignier, Almir
  • Megert, Christian
  • Morellet, François
  • Morris, Robert
  • Munari, Bruno

n

  • Nauman, Bruce
  • Negret, Edgar
  • Nevelson, Louise
  • Newman, Barnett
  • Noland, Kenneth
  • Nusberg, Lev

o

  • Oldenburg, Claes
  • Olitski, Jules

p

  • Paolozzi, Eduardo
  • Pichler, Walter
  • Pistoletto, Michelangelo
  • Poons, Larry

r

  • Raetz, Markus
  • Ramon
  • Rauschenberg, Robert
  • Raveel, Roger
  • Raysse, Martial
  • Reichert, Josua
  • Reinhardt, Ad
  • Rickey, George
  • Riley, Bridget
  • Rivers, Larry
  • Rosenquist, James
  • Roth, Dieter

s

  • Samaras, Lucas
  • Sandle, Michael
  • Schoonhoven, Jan J.
  • Segal, George
  • Severen, Dan van
  • Smith, David
  • Smith, Richard
  • Smith, Tony
  • Stanley, Robert
  • Stella, Frank
  • Sykora, Zdenék

t

  • Tajiri, Shinkichi
  • Takis (Vassilakis, Panayotis)
  • Talman, Paul
  • Thek, Paul
  • Tilson, Joe
  • Tinguely, Jean
  • Trova, Ernest
  • Tucker, William
  • Turnbull, William
  • Tyzack, Michael
  • Tàpies, Antoni
  • Télémaque, Hervé

u

  • Uecker, Günther
  • Ultvedt, Per Olof

v

  • Vasarely, Victor
  • Visser, Carel
  • Voss, Jan

w

  • Warhol, Andy
  • Wesselmann, Tom
  • Westermann, Horace Clifford

Artistic Director

Arnold Bode
born 1900 in Kassel, died 1977 in Kassel

  • 1919 - 1924
    Studied painting and graphics at the Kunstakademie Kassel, Kassel

  • 1922 - 1929
    Art exhibitions of modern art in the Orangery in Kassel

  • 1925
    Founding of the Kassel Secession and the artists' group Die Fünf

  • from 1926
    Freelance painter and draughtsman

  • 1929
    Joins the SPD. Member of the SPD until 1977

  • 1930
    Lecturer at the Städtisches Werklehrer-Seminar, Berlin

  • 1931 - 1933
    Deputy Director of the Werklehrer-Seminar, Berlin

  • 1933
    Removed from office by the National Socialists. Banned from working as an artist

  • 1934
    Internal immigration in Kassel

  • 1945
    American prisoner of war. Returns to Kassel after release

  • from 1945
    Development of project plans for a major international art exhibition. Founding of the Society of Western Art of the 20th Century

  • 1948
    Re-establishment of the Kassel Art Academy, which had been closed in 1932

  • 1950 - 1955
    Work as an interior and furniture designer

  • 1955
    Artistic director of the first documenta in Kassel

  • 1959
    Artistic director of documenta 2, Kassel

  • 1964
    Artistic director of documenta 3, Kassel

  • 1968
    Artistic director of documenta 4, Kassel

Awards (selection):

  • 1974
    Awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

  • 2015
    Hessian Culture Prize for his work as Artistic Director of documenta 1-4 (posthumously)

Black and white photograph by Arnold Bode. He is standing in an exhibition room, possibly in a conversation or on a guided tour.
Arnold Bode (1955)