Documenta Magazine

By Art Signal Magazine

There is no doubt that Kassel’s ‘Documenta’ continues to be one of the most important, outstanding and valuable forums for keeping up to date with and studying current tendencies in art. What makes it especially interesting is its singular quality of being a forum for discussion, always open and active; this feature also allows it to go beyond the merely descriptive as is often the case for other bianual or annual exhibitions at museums and galleries. In addition to this, its particular frequency of publication, every five years, is entirely suitable for concentrating the efforts of exhibition organizers when selecting and analyzing those contents which are most representative of present trends.

The series of three publications which we will be reviewing in the article belonging to Documenta 12 (2007) and brought together under the title ‘Documenta magazine’, are a good example of the quality that we have mentioned above, where great importance has been given to thought and analysis based on previous theoretical work which, in some ways, is aimed at introducing a propaedeutical aesthetics. For this projet, unusual in its scale and objectives, the exhibition director, Roger M. Buergel, the organiser Ruth Noack, and the Editor Georg Schöllhammer, asked 80 publications worldwide —both printed and digital— to send in articles by their contributors on one of the three topics suggested by the editors: “Is modernity our antiquity?”, “What is bare life?” and “What is to be done? (Education)”. Each of these topics comprise one of the three volumes of the project ‘Documenta magazine’, which were published in March, April and May of this year respectively as a preparatory foretaste of the inauguration of the exhibition on the 16th June.

The first thing to observe about ‘Documenta Magazine’ is the outstandingly good editorial decision which was made to open the publication’s doors to global collaboration. This alone is enough to ensure an interest in seeing the results of this heterogeneous and ambicious editorial initiative. Now, with an example in our hands, we can say that the results are frankly good, both as far as contents are concerned —of great documental and analytical usefulness— and in relation to editorial design and project production, this latter in collaboration with the German publishing house, Taschen.

The more than ample international dimension means that among the guest publications we can find some which are well known, outstanding for their quality and interest generated, such as, among others, Cabinet (New York), Parachute (Montreal), Springerin (Vienna) or Afterall (London/Los Angeles); but Documenta Magazine also introduces us to other publications, better or less well known depending on geographical region. From these latter, we would highlight, always taking into account their accesibility on the net and availability in English, ARTiT (Tokyo), Metronome Press (Paris), Ramona (Buenos Aires), Pages (Rotterdam/Teheran), Sarai Readers (Delhi), Site Magazine (Stockholm) y Studio Israeli Art Magazine (Tel Aviv). To this list we would add the excellent Spanish contribution made by Brumaria (Madrid/Barcelona) and the magazine Zehar (San Sebastián) published by Arteleku.

‘Documenta Magazine’s’ strategy of bringing together in one publication contents from diverse media such as journals and electronic publications from all over the world, together with the creation of spaces for debate and reflection between artists, art critics, sociologists and experts from other disciplines, reflects an approach which is coherent with Documenta’s tradition in previous editions. Thus for Documenta 11 (2002), an artistic director from outside Europe was named, as was the case of the African Okwui Enwezor. Also coinciding with this edition, and even before Documenta 10 (1997), the forum debates “100 days – 100 guests” and “5 platforms” took place.

Related links:

• List of Participating journals and magazines