documenta 12

Poster with blurred red and green background. The duration of documenta 12 is written on it. At the bottom are the sponsors.
Exhibition poster documenta 12 (2007)

Artistic Direction

Roger M. Buergel

Venues

Museum Fridericianum, Aue-Pavillon, documenta-Halle, Neue Galerie, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Restaurant elBulli, Roses

Artists

119

Visitors

750.584

Budget

26,054,100 Euro

Evaluation
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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.

Red poppy field in front of the Fridericianum with documenta 12 banners on the façade.
Sanja Ivecović, Poppy field (2012). Photo: Jens Ziehe © documenta Archive
Large wooden construction made of old doors and windows, set up outdoors, people sitting underneath.
Ai Weiwei, Template (2007)

The program of documenta 12, whose artist line-up had the highest proportion of women in documenta history to date at around 50 percent, was also structured by three so-called "leitmotifs". Firstly: Is modernity our antiquity? Secondly: What is mere life? And thirdly: What to do?

The first leitmotif asked to what extent our thinking and lives are still "deeply permeated by modern forms and visions" (Buergel/Noack). The second leitmotif was in some respects linked to Jan Hoet's documenta 9, as it dealt with the existential creatureliness of human beings, which in the postmodern age is permanently threatened by torture, terrorism and climate catastrophes. Finally, the third leitmotif focused on the problem of the (discursive) mediation of art, of "aesthetic education" (Buergel). To this end, Buergel/Noack, together with the Viennese art publicist Georg Schöllhammer, founded the international magazine project documenta 12 magazines.

Next to the Aue Pavilion on the Karlswiese, temporarily erected for documenta 12 - the largest exhibition space at 9500 square meters, whereby the greenhouse conceived as a "crystal palace" proved to be problematic not only in terms of climate - stood the sculpture Template (2007) by Ai Weiwei, a tower made of centuries-old doors from destroyed Chinese houses (the tower collapsed during a storm and then remained in its destroyed form at that location). For Fairytale (2002), the Chinese artist had also invited 1001 of his compatriots to come to Kassel for the documenta, an invitation that was highly explosive for many people in view of the political situation in China's dictatorship and the ban on leaving the country. Ai Weiwei had brought a wooden chair from the Quing dynasty to Kassel for each of the 1001 invitees, which were exhibited in the Museum Fridericianum, the Aue Pavilion and the Neue Galerie and were used by the mediation program as "islands of calm" for discussions. On the one hand, Ai Weiwei's action places the topic of "migration" in a concrete political context and, on the other, brings history, the present and design across time into a multi-layered dialog.

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".

Exhibition view with stuffed giraffe and colorful geometric objects in a blue room.
Peter Friedl, The Zoo Story (2007).

Artists

a

  • Abián Rose, Sonia
  • Adrià, Ferran
  • Afif, Saâdane
  • Ai, Weiwei
  • Altindere, Halil
  • Antin, Eleanor
  • Aoki, Ryoko
  • Aradeon, David
  • Aranberri, Ibon

b

  • Baer, Monika
  • Bajević, Maja
  • Bartana, Yael
  • Bartuszová, Mária
  • Basbaum, Ricardo
  • Billing, Johanna
  • Bonin, Cosima von
  • Brown, Trisha

c

  • Carnevale, Graciela
  • Chand, Mihr
  • Chen, Zaiyan
  • Coleman, James
  • Creischer, Alice

d

  • Dakić, Danica
  • Davila, Juan
  • Dias & Riedweg
  • Diaz, Gonzalo
  • Dodiya, Atul
  • Doujak, Ines
  • Dujourie, Lili
  • Duwenhögger, Lukas

f

  • Farocki, Harun
  • Ferrari, León
  • Freitas, Iole de
  • Friedl, Peter

g

  • Gernes, Poul
  • Geyer, Andrea
  • Gill, Simryn
  • Goldblatt, David
  • Gosh, Nibaran Chandra
  • Gowda, Sheela
  • Grigosrescu, Ion
  • Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia
  • Gutov, Dmitrij

h

  • Hazoumé, Romuald
  • Hu, Xiaoyuan

i

  • Ivekovic, Sanja

j

  • Jacob, Luis
  • Jáuregui, Jorge Mario

k

  • Kanwar, Amar
  • Katsushika, Hokusai
  • Kelly, Mary
  • Kelly, Mary & Ray Barrie
  • Klee, Paul
  • Kolářová, Běla
  • Konaté, Abdoulaye
  • Kouélany, Bill
  • Kovanda, Jiři
  • Krue-on, Sakarin
  • Kulik, Zofia
  • Kwiekulik

l

  • Lawler, Louise
  • Leonard, Zoe
  • Lin, Yilin
  • Lozano, Lee
  • Lu, Hao

m

  • Madikida, Churchill
  • Manglano-Ovalle, Iñigo
  • Maqsud at-Tabrizi, Haddschi
  • Marshall, Kerry James
  • Martin, Agnes
  • McCracken, John
  • Mohamedi, Nasreen
  • Monastyrskij, Andrej

n

  • Neuwirth, Olga

o

  • Ojeikere, J. D. 'Okhai
  • Osmolovskij, Anatolij
  • Osodi, George
  • Oteiza, Jorge

p

  • Pootoogook, Annie
  • Posenenske, Charlotte
  • Preobrazenskij, Kirill
  • Pumhösl, Florian

r

  • Rainer, Yvonne
  • Rajan, Ck
  • Richter, Gerhard
  • Riera, Alejandra
  • Rockenschaub, Gerwald
  • Rosenfeld, Lotty
  • Rosler, Martha

s

  • Sacilotto, Luis
  • Schendel, Mira
  • Schmidt, Dierk
  • Sekula, Allan
  • Shibli, Ahlam
  • Siekmann, Andreas
  • Solakov, Nedko
  • Spence, Jo
  • Spence, Jo & Rosy Martin & Maggie Murray & Terry Dennett
  • Stern, Grete
  • Steyerl, Hito
  • Stidworthy, Imogen
  • Stilinovic, Mladen
  • Stollhans, Jürgen
  • Sulaiman, Shooshi
  • Sun QinglinSun, QinglinQinglin, Sun
  • Sy, Oumou
  • Szapocznikow, Alina
  • Šedá, Kateřina

t

  • Thorne, David & Katya Sander & Ashley Hunt & Sharon Hayes & Andrea Geyer
  • Tillim, Guy
  • Tseng, Yu-Chin (Tseng Yu-Chin & Yu-Chin, Tseng)

v

  • Ven, Lidwien van de (Van de Ven, Lidwien)

w

  • Wachsmuth, Simon

x

  • Xie, Nanxing (Xie Nanxing & Nanxing, Xie)

y

  • Yangjiang Calligraphy Group

z

  • Zmijewski, Artur

Artistic Director

Roger M. Buergel
born 1962 in Berlin

  • 1983-1987
    Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

  • 1985-1987
    Private secretary to Hermann Nitsch, Vienna

  • 1986-1989
    Philosophy and Economics, University of Vienna, Vienna

  • 1990-1992
    Tutor for Film Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, Vienna

  • 1997-1999
    Research on the historiography of American post-war art at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and UC Berkeley, California

  • 2001-2003
    Lecturer in Visual Theory at the University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg

  • 2003-2007
    Artistic director of documenta 12, Kassel

  • 2012
    Artistic Director of the Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea

  • since 2014
    Director of the Johann Jacobs Museum, Zurich

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1997
    documenta 10, Kassel

  • 2005-2006
    Contemporary Arab Representations. The Iraqi Equation, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Kunst-Werke, Berlin

  • 2007
    DI/VISIONS. Culture and Politics in the Middle East, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

  • 2009
    Bahman Jalali, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona

  • 2009
    Curator of the Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates, Venice Biennale, Venice

Awards (selection)

  • 2015
    Hessian Culture Prize for her work as Artistic Director of documenta 10

Portrait of the Artistic Director with open trench coat and pink sweater outdoors.
Roger M. Buergel