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Copyright of Arcadia -- International Journal for Literary Studies is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the past five years the cultural world in Germany has been shaken and divided by a series of controversies involving contemporary works of art charged with being anti-Semitic. Obviously, with the Holocaust continuing to occupy a major position in modern German consciousness and history, sensitivity to anti-Semitic expressions is particularly keen here. This sensitivity has been increased by a number of recent developments, including the growing visibility of far-right political groups, the rise of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) protesting Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and the official politicization of these tensions by a parliamentary ruling in 2015 restricting the activities of the BDS. The conflict between legitimate criticism of policies of the Israeli state and legitimate censorship of ethnically offensive material has recently become increasingly bitter in Germany. This article discusses the dynamics of three of the most significant recent examples: the conflict involving Germany's most prestigious arts festival, the Kassell documenta in 2020; the withdrawal in 2022 of the European Drama Award, the continent's largest award, from British dramatist Caryl Churchill; and the withdrawal from the Munich stage of the most recent play by Wajdi Mouawad, who has been widely heralded in Germany as the most significant contemporary dramatist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O artigo trata das interrelações entre a obra Diário de um ano ruim (2007), de J. M.Coetzee, o romance Diário da queda, de Michel Laub e as artes do espaço, com suas instalações, tais como apresentadas nas Documenta de Kassel. Investiga o que há em comum entre esses três atos de linguagem e conclui - após breve apresentação da historicidade da Documenta e de um breve comentário das duas obras literárias abordadas- que elas representam, no panorama da atualidade global, uma intervenção estética de alta qualidade técnica e ética, uma vez que todas elas discutem e promovem a busca da liberdade e da democracia em um momento histórico marcado pelo recrudescimento do fundamentalismo e do terrorismo.

In The Nazis (1998) and its sequel, Real Nazis (2017), the Polish American artist Piotr Uklański creates glossy photographic assemblages of real and fictional Nazis, which critics have generally interpreted by turns as critiquing or participating in the culture industry's fascination with and glamourization of Nazism. However, the formal mechanisms of Uklański's work remain undertheorized. This essay offers a reading of The Nazis and Real Nazis that locates the aesthetic politics of these two products of the "perpetrator turn" in Holocaust studies and memory studies in the ways they manipulate assumptions about photographs' temporality. Photographic theorists like Siegfried Kracauer, Susan Sontag, André Bazin, and Roland Barthes famously conceptualized photographic time through the category of grammatical tense and on examples of individual still images rather than photographic series. This essay builds on those theories by applying Peter Wollen's work about narrative and grammatical aspect, which concerns the completedness or duration of what photographs depict, to argue that Uklański's Nazi projects are more adequately explained as incomplete photographic narratives. By occluding viewers' expectations about the aspect of photography, The Nazis and Real Nazis critically renarrate Nazism not as a completed historical trauma but as alive today amid a worldwide resurgence of right-wing populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the contemporary art show documenta 14 (d14) moved to Athens in 2017 claiming to embrace the periphery and destabilize Eurocentric neoliberalism, it triggered a scathing critique that its interest in the city was Orientalist and that its political agenda was contradicted by its own financial structures. This article dwells on the disjuncture between the sanguine exaltation of the native subject and the natives' own disdain. By drawing on d14's embodiment of an anthropological perspective and its celebration of tribal subaltern subjectivity, I revisit unresolved problems in the discussion of exoticism and scrutinize the nativist fantasies in which anthropology has historically participated and that reemerge today in sovereigntist movements, such as Brexit. I propose that d14's cultural investment in the South as well as Athenians' responses may be understood by considering the encounter between European tourists and shepherds in the Sfakia region of Crete from the 1960s to the present. The Sfakian scope becomes valuable in recovering the simultaneous positivity and oppressiveness of Romantic ideas concerning sublime natives. This positivity, ironically, may spark an anticolonial disdain fueled by Greeks' renewed sense of subjugation in the debt crisis and their ambivalent relationship to Europe and the concept of colonialism, the exploration of which can shed light on cultural complexities of global inequality today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the dynamics of spectatorship and exhibition organization in the context of Documenta 15. It explores the altered role of the spectator resulting from the hyperrelational nature of the exhibition. It examines the presentations of various projects within Documenta 15, focusing on the intersections between art, marginalized communities, . It also discusses how the exhibition's principles challenge conventional notions of spectatorship and representation.

The article discusses the artistic collective ruangrupa's approach to Documenta 15, an art exhibition, which introduced the concept of "Lumbung," which draws from the idea of a communal rice barn, aiming to address colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchal structures.It examines the disconnect between ruangrupa's rhetoric of healing and the ongoing sociopolitical challenges, as well as the commercialization of activist art within the context of the art market.

The article discusses the concept of gathering and feasting in artistic contexts, focusing on the dynamics observed during Documenta exhibitions. It explores how the poetics of equality, globality, and shared nourishment play a role in these gatherings, including the connection between hunger and solidarity. It also mentions the history of artistic gatherings, the interwoven minor histories of capital, and the changing nature of the social category in contemporary art.

In 2022, two rare coinciding events took place: the 59th Venice Biennale and the 15th Kassel documenta. These two mega-events not only occurred in close temporal proximity but also shared a common approach, providing a platform for discourses on identity. At the 15th documenta, for the first time in its history, the role of curator was not assumed by a Western global star, but rather by an Indonesian group called ruangrupa, which invited additional collectives, including Asian, African, and South American groups, as well as Western/Northern artists collaborating with various marginalized communities. The 15th documenta, through its publications and exhibited projects, strongly echoed the voice of the global South. The curator of the 59th Venice Biennale essentially reversed the traditional ratio of male/ female exhibitors, giving prominence to the voices of women. In both cases, the curatorial decisions allowed for the inclusion of less-heard voices (the global South, women), which is undoubtedly a commendable development. However, I consider it problematic that these alternative voices became dominant and monologic in these events, rather than fostering a dialogue with the reinterpreted Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012), a participatory guided audio-video tour through Kassel's old train station, situated at the sprawling site of Documenta 13. Focusing on their own experience, Takahashi considers how connotative, complex, and creative thinking can emerge from one's movements through enormous international art exhibitions, where one encounters a series of complex artworks in rapid succession. Is there potential in how physical limitations combine with too much information and too much aesthetic experience? What does it mean to lose control and objectivity, to give up the distanced, objective view, and instead be immersed, embodied, emotional, and frustrated? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de la Asociacion Aragonesa de Criticos de Arte is the property of Asociacion Aragonesa de Criticos de Arte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The professional and amicable relationship between the art historian Werner Haftmann (1912-1999) and the abstract artist Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1969) in the Federal Republic of Germany during the post-war period is an emblematic case of the development of an art historiography. Through the analysis of correspondence, the modern art encyclopedia Malerei im 20. Jahrhundert, published by Haftmann in 1954, and exhibitions catalogues, this study retraces the fundamental stages of the path to the consecration of Nay’s abstract painting undertaken by the art historian in Germany and internationally. On the one hand, Nay benefited considerably from the critical support of one of West Germany’s most influential art historians. On the other hand, Haftmann forged around the work and the figure of the painter the exemplary demonstration of his theories proclaiming the triumph of abstract art respectively as the art of the future western democratic post-war world as well as a free and independent creative performance.

Copyright of ARTS: Artuklu Journal of Art & Humanities is the property of Mardin Artuklu University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Long before dOCUMENTA (13) opened in 2012, designated documenta director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev pledged that “her” documenta would stay clear of what she called the “Biennale-Syndrome.”  What was the Biennale-Syndrome, and why did she want to avoid it? What seemed to be the challenge here? The Venice Biennale - the first art biennale founded in 1895 – has traditionally defined itself as simultaneously a spectacle and as a representation of nation states through works of visual art. Is it possible for an international art show of its size and prestige to avoid the trend of further festivalization, and can it divest itself of re-mediations of cultural, racial, ethnic, and, in particular, national categories as artistic and aesthetic criteria for includson or exclusion? dOCUMENTA (13) became a record breaking show, visited by 860,000 people in 36 places in Kassel. As such, this 100-day show was, without any doubt, the most popular European art spectacle of the summer of 2012. It appeared, however, remarkably unspectacular. Although featureing the work of 188 international artists hailing from more than 50 countries, nationality did not seem to be a relevant issue. This article takes the reader on a journey back in time, reviewing the past 60 years of the documenta in order to diagnose its paradigmatic shifts. We will tour the 2012 documenta to determine what made Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s show stand out from previous documenta exhibitions and the ubiquitous biennials. Drawing upon Levent Soysal’s concept of “Public Intimacy,” and relying on his idea of the “new individual” who engages accordingly with her surroundings and her social environment, the article will discuss how dOCUMENTA (13) enticed its visitors. In turn, Bruno Latour’s “thing theory” will help explain how this most recent documenta rendered nationally defined diversity an obsolete analytic for the presentation of art.

Die documenta14 war eine besonders internationale, kritische und politische Ausstellung und wird genau aus diesem Grund vielfach kritisiert. Dieser Artikel analysiert gängige Thesen der Kunstkritik zur Kasseler Ausstellung am Beispiel eines Magazinbeitrages in der Zeitschrift s u b \ u r b a n. Die Kritik wird an vielen Stellen der documenta14 nicht gerecht, weil sie nur oberflächlich argumentiert. Sowohl die Kunstwerke selbst als auch die kuratorischen Konzepte waren selbstreflexiver als behauptet. Der Vorwurf des Missbrauchs der Kunst zur bloßen Kommunikation von politischen Forderungen lässt sich nicht an den konkreten Objekten nachweisen und fällt somit letztlich auf die Kritiker_innen zurück.

Dieser Artikel analysiert, in welcher Weise sich die Weltkunstausstellung documenta 14 mit dem öffentlichen Raum in Kassel auseinandersetzte. Als Kritik an globalen Unrechtszuständen konzipiert, ging die diesjährige Documenta nicht auf die lokalen Umstände in Kassel ein und benutzte die Stadt stattdessen als Bühne. Statt sich mit den konkreten Prozessen vor Ort auseinanderzusetzen, wie die Ausstellung dies in Athen getan hat, wird die Tradition der Documenta gebrochen, einen Beitrag zur gesellschaftlichen Stadtentwicklung leisten zu wollen.

The article deals with the interelationships between J. M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year (2007), Michel Laub’s Diary of the Fall (2011), and the performing arts of space, with its installations, as presented in the Kassel’s Documenta. The essay investigates and analyses what these three acts of language have in common. The conclusion of this effort of interpretation sheds light on their representation of an aesthetic and ethical intervention of great quality. All of the works discuss and promote a search for liberty and democracy in a world dismantled by the upheavel of fundamentalism and terrorism.

Working with Stephen Bann, the journal has developed a new feature called “Animating the Archive,” which allows authors to annotate and contextualise curated selections of archival material. In his feature, 1964: A Year of Exhibitions, Stephen Bann reflects on the diverse sources of intellectual and artistic inspiration – exhibitions, literary journals, essay collections, collaborations, and travels abroad – that shaped his thinking as a young art critic in the early 1960s. Readers may navigate the material chronologically, or explore it in a non-linear fashion.

The case is George Hadjimichalis' Documenta 14 installation Crossroad. The Crossroad Where Oedipus Killed Laius. A Description and History of the Journey from Thebes to Corinth, Delphi, and the Return to Thebes (1990–95/1997). The approach of the article is location studies from the angle of psychogeography (Coverley), Situationism and geocriticism (Westphal). These theories are applied to the Greek landscapes as rendered in George Hadjimichalis' artistic textualization of the route in his multimedia installation. Crossroad has multiple sources. The article casts light on the topographical nature of the Oedipus conflict and its cultural history, including not only the landscape and its route as they exist today, but also as they are figured in Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex, and as they are thematized in Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Il 20 luglio del 1964 la Pravda pubblica un duro attacco alla Biennale di Venezia - che sancisce, con il premio assegnato a Rauschenberg, la consacrazione del New Dada e della Pop Art - accusandola di “ciarlataneria”. Analogamente da parte della critica italiana emerge una diffusa tendenza a non ammettere la stessa liceità estetica del Realismo Socialista, recuperando i termini di una contrapposizione tra “arte” e “kitsch” il cui antecedente fondamentale può essere identificato nel celebre testo di Greenberg del 1939. Sempre nel 1964 la terza edizione di documenta a Kassel propone una lettura del contemporaneo che esclude programmaticamente il realismo, assumendo una visione idealista che rifiuta ogni possibile tangenza tra ricerche estetiche e dimensione politica. L’articolo si propone di indagare l’affermazione di un modello di lettura del Realismo Socialista che risente profondamente delle politiche culturali in atto negli anni della guerra fredda, i cui retaggi continueranno a perpetuarsi nel dibattito successivo sul realismo, trovando solo in anni recenti, con autori come Boris Groys, una forma di problematizzazione.

One of the crucial changes that occurred in contemporary visual art in the twentieth century was the formation of an immense institutional platform with thousands of very different institutions that not only exhibit, house, and support contemporary art, but also directly commission it and produce it. This global network of institutions is run by contemporary art experts – which as a rule means curators, not artists. Curators are the ones who devise and administer programmes, who invite the public to participate in a varied and constant stream of events, and who guide the public using a complex discourse rich in metaphor and conceptual abstraction. The art system, therefore, not only allows but even demands that the curator, too, in keeping with the charismatic ideology of the art field, be as fully “consecrated” as possible and also that production relations be defined, not clearly as actual production relations, but rather as, for instance, the relations of hospitable hosting.

The recent documenta 14 (2017) addressed the question of art theft and war spoliations, taking as its point of departure the case of Cornelius Gurlitt (1932-2014). One can fully embrace the curatorial engagement in revising exclusive Western canons of art history. However, this revision was accomplished by means of objects of colonial appropriation. In such instances, the critical reflexive turn of Western art his­tory upon its canonical self stumbles against the violence of looting and dispos­session often inflicted in the name of scientific ideals and accumulation of knowledge, leading to yet another "story of wheels within wheels".

The article discusses the depiction of charity in the exhibition of the artwork of Gustave Courbet at the Neue Galerie gallery during the documenta 14 art fair in Kassel, Germany including his 1868 painting "Alms from a beggar at Ornans".

This paper examines the participation of Czechoslovakia at the large-scale exhibitions held during the latter half of the 1960s. In particular it looks at the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paolo Biennial and the Biennale de Paris, at which Czechoslovakia often featured by means of national pavilions or areas, and compares these shows with the selection of Czechoslovak artists by foreign curators for the fourth documenta in Kassel in 1968. The text focuses on how the exhibits were presented at these exhibitions, the mechanisms for conceiving of these occasions, and the position of the curators or commissioners. The form and content of the Czechoslovak expositions, which were created by a small circle of people, were relatively conservative, both within the framework of the exhibitions as a whole and in relation to the domestic art scene (especially in the case of the Venice and Sao Paolo biennales). Nevertheless, compared with both earlier and later presentations at the same events, Czechoslovak participation during the latter half of the sixties was progressive in character and featured good quality exhibits. At the end of the decade this was manifest in the selection of a smaller number of artists, a greater emphasis placed on the work of younger artists, and a broadening out of the media represented (which now included environments and light-kinetic work). On rare occasions, poorly connected national exhibitions were replaced by an exhibition conceived of as an integrated whole. I argue that the politically and socially turbulent period around 1968 (both in Czechoslovakia and around the world), which was manifest in the organisation and form of the biennales examined, was not reflected in the Czechoslovak presentations. It was biennale-style events that allowed Czechoslovak artists to see how they fared within an international context and mediated information on current trends for both artists and curators. In contrast, the discussions just starting in the West on the very concept of the biennale did not yet feature on the Czechoslovak art scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the position of the art production working group of the Ulmer Verein für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften e.V. art and cultural society regarding global migration and the 2017 documenta 14 art fair in Kassel, Germany and Athens, Greece. The article focuses on presentations of artistic positions, initiation and networking of long-term cooperative art projects, and curator Adam Szymczyk's vision of two corresponding exhibition venues.

The article reviews and compares the 2017 Venice Biennale biennial art and cultural exhibition in Venice, Italy, the Skulptur Projekte Münster art fair in Münster, Germany, and the documenta art fair in Kassel, Germany. The author offers information on each festival's history, their past and present artistic directors, and individual exhibitions at the fairs of social commentary-laden political art from Oscar Tuazon, Kokj Tanaka, and Pierre Huyghe.

The article reviews exhibitions including Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy and Documenta in Kassel and Skulptur Projekte Münster in Germany, featuring the art installation, video installation, and sculpture by artists Peju Alatise, Ibrahim Mahama and Olu Oguibe.

The article offers information on the Documenta 14 art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany in 2017, featuring films by filmmakers Wang Bing and Romuald Karmakar, and a sculpture by Daniel Knorr.

Copyright of Revista Croma is the property of Revista Croma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers information on how art museums have been showcasing films and vidoe installations focusing on the exhibition titled “The Parthenon of Books" at Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany. It mentions Marta Minujin's construction of banned books. Topics include themes of marginalized and minority at Documenta art museum and screening of Naeem Mohaiemen's "Two Meetings and a Funeral".