Charles Esche · Documenta — thermometer or catalyst? скачать в хорошем качестве

Charles Esche · Documenta — thermometer or catalyst?

October 30, 2024 @ MaMa, Zagreb * — introduction by Sabina Sabolović / WHW The history of the five-yearly Documenta exhibition is a very useful source for understanding the role of art and culture in the Western European states that emerged after the Second World War ended in 1945. First staged in 1955, documenta mainly responded to and reflected on the social and political changes of the liberal western (and later neo-liberal) united German state. Its claim to be a world exhibition however, also meant that it has become a way to understand western understandings of internationalism and globalism on a cultural level up to today. The talk with focus mainly on four editions from 1955, 1972, 2002 and 2022. It will look at forms of display, design and curatorial ambitions in these editions and how they mark the changing relations between artistic and political desire. Through images of the exhibitions and analysis of their claims, the talk tries to map out the routes that have led to the current cultural stagnation, a mirror of the wider stagnation of political and economic forces in our shared European home. In the end, the talk will speculate a little on the future of documenta in the face of the cancellations, censorship and the ‘culture wars’ of the present. ========================== Charles Esche is a former director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2004 – 2024) where he recently co-curated Soils, an exhibition about art, material and belonging. He is a professor of contemporary art and curating at University of the Arts, London and an advisor at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. Among other international exhibitions, he has co-curated The Meeting That Never Was, MO Museum, Vilnius, 2022; Power and Other Things, Europalia, BOZAR, Brussels 2017; Art Turns, Word Turns; Museum MACAN, Jakarta 2017; Jakarta Biennale 2015; How to Talk about Things that don’t Exist - 31st Sao Paulo Bienal 2014; Ideal for Living, U3 Triennale, Ljubljana 2011; RIWAQ Biennale, Palestine, 2007 and 2009; Istanbul Biennale, 2005 and Gwangju Biennale, 2002. His latest publication is Art and Its Worlds, Afterall and Koenig Press, 2021 and he is writing a book on Demodern Thinking with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti to be published by Duke University Press in 2025. Esche is co-convenor of School of Common Knowledge with Zdenka Badovinac and Manolo Borja-Villel. He received the 2012 Princess Margriet Award and the 2014 CCS Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence. The talk is part of the WHW discursive program History of Art and Society. https://www.whw.hr/en/