During our first trip to
Athens we heard so much about the up and coming documenta* 14 that it
raised our interest. Local artists and other cultural professionals were often highly critical towards the
exhibition and as a result we Ingrid and Eeva wanted to learn more about it on
our second trip to Athens.
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| Eeva and Ruben on the balcony of EMST |
Until today
the whole documenta 14 raises more questions than it gives answers to: Why to
bring documenta 14 to Athens? Why this edition is called Learning from
Athens? What kind of narratives documenta 14 wants to tell? What impacts it
has on Athens (in Europe) and/or in the cultural field, everyday life?
One explanation for the question “why Athens?” is given in the article by iLiana Fokianaki: The director of dokumenta 14, curator Adam Szymczyk, explained to have taken the inspiration for an ‘Athenian learning experience’ from the fourth Athens Biennial of 2013, entitled Agora. But in Szymczyk’s public lectures throughout his two-year presence in Athens, it remained vague what exactly had inspired him. The only thing he declared was that documenta would be ‘guest’ rather than host in Athens. Athens: a city with the symbolic value of being a place and space where European ideals emerge, whilst simultaneously a paradigm of any city operating in crisis.
One explanation for the question “why Athens?” is given in the article by iLiana Fokianaki: The director of dokumenta 14, curator Adam Szymczyk, explained to have taken the inspiration for an ‘Athenian learning experience’ from the fourth Athens Biennial of 2013, entitled Agora. But in Szymczyk’s public lectures throughout his two-year presence in Athens, it remained vague what exactly had inspired him. The only thing he declared was that documenta would be ‘guest’ rather than host in Athens. Athens: a city with the symbolic value of being a place and space where European ideals emerge, whilst simultaneously a paradigm of any city operating in crisis.
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| The entrance to EMST |
We searched thought the catalogues, press releases and webpages for answers without any real answers.There is a lot of information about the venue places (for example discription about the EMST, an old brewery building or the Athens Conservatoire, an unfinished cultural center from the 1960's), about the curators and some light details about the artists. We are certain that Adam Szymczyk, the Artistic Director of documenta 14 and the team of documenta had reasons for all of this but it is definitely not easily found in any of the material given to the audience or the press for that matter. Even if this is deliberate we are left guessing. This guessing game results in different interpretations that might not be so useful for the exhibition.
[* Documenta – first time organised in 1955 – is a contemporary art exhibition organised in every five years in Kassel, Germany. The documenta 14 and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens started conversations in early 2014 that the exhibition would be realised in both cities. The idea for this came initially for Adam Szymczyk, who also came up with the official title Learning from Athens for both exhibitions.]
