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09.19.2017

documenta 14, April 8–September 17, 2017, in Athens, Kassel, and beyond, has reached more people than ever before

documenta 14 is not owned by anyone in particular. It is shared among its visitors and artists, readers and writers, as well as all those whose work made it happen.

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News
„Als Ludwig I. von Bayern in seiner philhellenischen Begeisterung seinen Sohn Otto samt der bayrischen Bürokratie auf den Thron des neuen, befreiten Griechenland setzte, schiffte sich sein Minister Rudhard, ein Sohn Passaus, von seiner Heimatstadt aus direkt nach Athen ein; er trank während der Reise aus einem eigens mitgeführten Bierfaß und sang dabei bajuwarische Lieder, in denen ein Hans Jörgl hinter seiner Liesl herläuft. Die in Griechenland eingesetzte Bavarokratie sorgte in Athen sogleich für die Eröffnung einer großen Brauerei sowie von Lokalen, die — wie von Wastlhuber, der geheime Ministerial-Kanzlei-Konzipist, sagte — ,Athen in eine Vorstadt Münchens’ verwandelten.“
—Claudio Magris
Notes

Postcommodity

Sound is weaponized. During World War II, fighter jets flew low to simulate the dropping of bombs, keeping citizens on edge. In Guantanamo Bay, metal music was blasted at intolerable levels in the belief…

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Artists

There Aren’t Enough Magazines ...

by Antonin Artaud

There aren’t enough magazines, or if you will, all existing magazines are useless. We are appearing because we believe we are responding to something.  We are real. This excuses us from being necessary…

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South Issue #9 [documenta 14 #4]

No One is Illegal

with Martin Rapp, Rex Osa, and Ralf Homann

Twenty years ago, the No One is Illegal campaign was established as a decentralized network of anti-racist, migrant, and refugee-solidarity groups within documenta X’s Hybrid Workspace. Since then, it…

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Calendar
New York
Athens
New York
Kassel

The documenta 14 Reader

The main book of documenta 14 takes the form of a Reader, evoking the various meanings associated with the term…

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Publications

Trianon

Trianon Cinema opened with the premiere of the Greek film Never on Sunday in August 1960. Today, the cinema continues to screen films but has expanded its program to present performances, concerts, and…

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Venues

Baldugiin Sharav

As legend has it, the Tibetan-born reincarnate ruler Bogd Khan (1870–1924) commissioned the famous artist Baldugiin Sharav to paint scenes representative of life in the Mongolian countryside during the…

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Historical Positions

Former Underground Train Station (KulturBahnhof)

documenta 14 in Kassel might begin underground. Envisioned as the visitor’s point of entry into the exhibition, the decommissioned tunnel at the KulturBahnhof (formerly Kassel’s main rail station)…

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Venues

Lala Rukh
Introduction by Natasha Ginwala

An ink drawing entitled Hieroglyphics I: Koi ashiq kisi mehbooba se 1 (1995) unfolds Lala Rukh’s secret language, a constellation of calligraphic form, Minimalism, and symbolic writing. Borrowing her…

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South Issue #8 [documenta 14 #3]

Keimena #11: Loubia Hamra (Bloody Beans)

by Narimane Mari

Bloody Beans, Narimane Mari’s first feature-length film, is a dreamlike take on the violent spiral of Algeria’s recent history. Its force and beauty is that it does not employ a straightforward historical narrative, but instead re-enacts the past through play…

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Public TV

#6 Memory under Construction: Towards a Public Memory of Torture in Greece

by Kostis Kornetis

After Argentina’s economic collapse in 2001, a discourse around body politics became strongly engaged in not only tackling but also actively working through the country’s painful dictatorial past…

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Calendar

Material Matters Library

The “Material Matters” library is a collection of objects and sounds that have been entrusted to aneducation by documenta 14 artists…

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Public Education