Drinks with the art world last night. Topics included the current Documenta, whose collective leadership, ruangrupa (rough translation: "a space for art"), opted for the Indonesian lumbung (rough translation: "rice barn") metaphor as its inclusion/organization/activation principal, and from there the segmentarianist disorganization that can only result from inviting artistic collectives whose art includes the invitation of other collectives to work "with them".
With that kind of speed and volume it is invariable that certain presentations (objects, gestures, didactics, etc.) would be included that might otherwise be excluded based on the perception, real or otherwise, of sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, and that of course was the case. For my part, I wondered aloud why the folks at ruangrupa would not have anticipated such conflicts and have in place a methodology that could be deployed to discuss them in a public forum, but of course everyone is too busy, and besides, it's too late, Hito has pulled her work, etc.
As with all discussions of Documenta, the final question is, What is its future? and it occurred to me that, despite the temptation of those whose work includes the tearing down and erasure of monolithic institutions, Documenta is simply too big and too German to go anywhere other than where it can only go after its previous iteration. Based on this current Documenta, that place might involve a director from Israel, maybe a forensic architect. But would someone like Eyal Weizman want the gig? And if it was offered to him, would he be crazy enough to accept it?
No comments:
Post a Comment