Downstairs, near the toilets under Documenta’s main hall, is a urinal with colored helium balloons attached. Signed R. Bell, 2017. The urinal is the answer of the Australian artist Richard Bell to that of Marcel Duchamp, who surveyed the museum collections a hundred years earlier with his now famous urinal. Duchamp, who made the statement that any object can be art as long as you present it in the context of art, signed his urinal with R. Mutt.
‘Western Art’ is the title of this new work, as if that’s where Western art belongs in this edition of Documenta: in the sewers where art lovers relieve themselves. On the one hand it is too funny – one of the balloons is a pig – to see a sour image in it. On the other hand, it is indeed a kind of cynical summary of twentieth-century Western art, from Duchamp to Jeff Koons, and fits as a statement with Documenta 15, where Western art plays a marginal role.
Documenta has always been political. The idea behind it was already in 1955 that art and dialogue could open windows on the world. An ideal that this edition does not deny: the Indonesian collective ruangrupa put together the art manifestation and opted for a different set-up. It is not the big names in the visual arts that are central, but collectives that do not revolve around the individual contribution. In addition, the focus is emphatically on the Global South directed.
Friendship
The question is: what does that yield? Friendship to begin with, if it is up to ruangrupa. All over the city they want people to discuss art, spectators can participate in works of art and the idea of lumbung – a concept that more or less stands for a ‘common rice barn’ – predominates.
That sounds vague, but it doesn’t turn out that way. On Friedrichsplatz, where there is always an image that defines the face of the current edition, there is now an embassy: that of the Aboriginals. A film is showing in which Richard Bell asks questions about land expropriation in Australia. The pillars of the Fridericianum are painted black and filled with texts. The Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi has ‘power’ (with a circle around the letters ‘we’), ‘Humanity’ and peace signs painted on it. At the bottom of one of the pillars is also the text: ‘Me and the pigeons paint the columns’which makes you take another good look at those blobs of paint, if they are at all.
Inside, you are welcomed by the Fridskul Library, where eleven collectives have come together to create a work of art: chairs are arranged in a circle around washing dishes that are arranged like a fountain. In the back is a jukebox painted by the Dutchman Brian Elstak, which can be seen here partly on behalf of The Black Archives (a historic cultural center that focuses on black culture). Above the whole hang flags with slogans and wishes, such as the call “night” to deal with each other. IIn the reception area next door, the Indonesian collective Gudskul set up tables with playing cards on which questions are asked, such as what a collective can be for you. There is a chess game for four people and there are notes on which you can put ideas. The whole is called ‘Nonkrong’, Bahasa for ‘place to come together’. Participation art that sometimes puts you in a good mood.
This also applies to the work of Nabwana IGG: the Ugandan filmmaker made an action film about a fighting mother who is so over the top is that you laugh. The Thai collective Baan Noorg has placed a halfpipe on which you can skate – something that not everyone goes well with and is therefore extra fun to watch. Individual artists who do have a separate space – such as a great installation with a film by the German artist Hito Steyerl, about a reality show and cheese – make a plea for a collective or call for collective resistance against the established order.
protests
The idea is also to create more awareness. Abuse of power, the consequences of colonialism, the disappearance of traditions, the downside of second-hand clothing in East African countries and exhaustion of the earth: it all comes up for discussion. It is a lot, and there is not really room for reflection, but it is fascinating.
Whether this set-up will lead to friendships remains to be seen: the organization was previously accused of anti-Semitism, especially for inviting a Palestinian collective to propagate the ideas of a pan-Arabist. Demonstrations have been announced for Saturday, the day of the opening.
Also read: A rice barn as a laboratory for the future
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 18, 2022
#fifteenth #edition #Documenta #revolves #power #collective