documenta 12

For the first time in documenta's history, the major Kassel event was led by a pair of curators in 2007, namely the actually appointed Artistic Director Roger M. Buergel and the curator Ruth Noack. Only unofficially, however, did they act as a "dual leadership", as the documenta statutes do not officially permit two directors.

Both had written a programmatic statement on their flags, and it was called "Migration of Form". What was meant by this was that visual culture in human history has to make do with a few basic forms, which are then used in art history in different contexts and content orientations. Buergel/Noack emphasized that "contemporary does not mean that the works were created yesterday. They must be significant for us today. documenta 12 aims at historical lines of development in art as well as unexpected contemporaneities". In order to make these "unexpected simultaneities" visible, works of art from different decades and cultures in which similar formal patterns emerged were placed in relation to one another. This was intended to reveal a "migration" of aesthetic forms across temporal and cultural boundaries through to the art of our postmodern world.

In the Neue Galerie, this striking formalism was further emphasized by walls painted in different colours. The moment of migration resulted in a high percentage of artists from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. What was new was the inclusion of older art, ranging from 14th century Persian miniatures to global art from recent decades. Not only were artists long known in their home countries, such as Nasreen Mohamedi, presented to a broad public for the first time in Germany; works by some of the artists highlighted here - John McCracken, Kerry James Marshall, Charlotte Posenenske, Gerwald Rockenschaub - also "migrated" through all the exhibition venues.

In front of the Fridericianum, Sanja Ivekovic planted a field of poppies (2007) that transformed Friedrichsplatz into a "Red Square" and, for all its superficial beauty, evoked the most diverse associations associated with the color red - from the communist flag to the blood spilled in Afghanistan in connection with the cultivation of poppies for heroin. Peter Friedl's The Zoo Story (2007) in the documenta hall was also one of the most popular works in the exhibition. The 3.5 meter high specimen of a stuffed giraffe came from a zoo in the West Bank: during an Israeli military operation, the animal had panicked, fallen and succumbed to its injuries. The zoo's vet then amateurishly made a specimen, which was purchased by Friedel and transported to Kassel, where it stood among stylized garden carpets from Iran and stuffed animal sculptures by Cosima von Bonin.

With the inclusion of the Kulturforum Schlachthof in Nordstadt and Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, where documenta artworks were integrated into the existing collection of Old Masters - such as Danica Dakic's video El Dorado (2007), shot in front of tapestries from the Kassel tapestry pattern - documenta 12 spread far beyond the city limits of Kassel. Special proximity to Kassel was sought in advance with the establishment of a documenta advisory board consisting of 40 committed Kassel citizens, who were henceforth involved in various areas of conception and mediation, which was given high priority as an "integral part of the curatorial composition".