“The only rlsion to ant that can be sanctioned in a realty thot Stands uncer tha constant threat of cetesrophe is cne thet tease works of aft with the same deadly seriousness that chatacterces the world today” (Theodor Wi. Adama} “We sheulit let ourselves be ovetly impressed by the false retary cf'tha Modems who do nat 888 4 olage far ehice which fey ear puree 9 mera ~in reasonable lssoutee" (Emmanuol Levinas) Prologue This essay indies 0 énalogaus and complementary readings of ethics end aesthetics in contemporary art. The first oar sass 10 underotang the relationship netween the ideas of ethics and Gesthefes thet ame curent debates in whet is cthowwise called Balti¢al ar. The sasord partis concemed ath types of aristia practice that stadcle the raolm of art and documentary, and the problems they pase tb our comprehension af reeliy in the context cra works, media Images, and exhbitione cf contempaiary art bn tha fies | shat aralyae reasons forthe rerirhable tensiorretan ofthe concept af the peliical in conerporay a, eapecialy as Concerns both the aubjest and content at such art, thet make ‘Seoandary the fermal reons of the work. Secondly. tha ext ston Cocumenta 11 provides the exemplary notice as 2 spscitic case Study for Now to ead the disfigured tradition af te documentary 23 A converges wth @ surprisingly conservative notign of the dsimterestedness of art in ts relations with socialite ‘The Unhomely and the Anxiety of Global Viodemity A distance of neerly tity years coparstes us from Adomo's state: ment, 4 stalamert all tle mera remarkable fcr its prascience in shunting the stange disertoslation of eifeaity in recent alt which © amr Rosrtiem’ mates ome ye erp he Se St tron on snes Ht Roem Fu tan eenabove all else values an ever-metebolzed fornalism by means ot a strong return to alstraction in the advanosd sectors of the art ‘sconomy: Te the degres that the at economy of the gallery system puts a bigh premium on commodtty atjects, the retuin to formalism ond abstracton heralds a 1eurn wa kind of conservatism thet all bot abjures the kind of art which continuously registass a sange of what Sartre would have called exgagement. wiht | am calling ‘abstraction here should bs understood net justin the sense of meta: Physics. Modernist abstraction, ozpasialy, unfolds out of mecha hist, formal and stylistis devices that ecnstitute its represerita- ‘tonol frame—awvih 2 tendency towards the transcendental and the Universal, cn the part of Abstract Expressionism, and the meta Physical in the case of gaomenfc ebsvaciion. In contemporary aft however, al these have become subjaied, thereby pushing the Concent of abstretion more in ths direction of he opacity evident in recert abstract art's artful contertleceness. In spite of this de- Fation, 6 visible soresm exsts tocay between the eesthates cf for- malism anc! tose pracitioners wih polite leanings, who—with aim memories of tne institutional -akeower of istoncal consoious- hess hovering over them—neventreless insist on a's engagement ‘With social ffs. What should be natiad in the current context, however, is how distanced works of art that evince a paitical stance are, an the one hand, from the old wo-patt model of Merit ertique of the commodity form ang bourgenis saniaty, and on tha other, abstaction’s interiorization of artistic vision as a uniquely end ire ‘ternafly echorent world in which irdividuel enactment tates prece- dance over that cf the collective a sacial, The lnttar view purges: the external world from the space of ert, wishing for it a slate ct urity, a state which nat only rejedes iusionism, but elso asserts (hat the full meening of eny artis tc be found in its specie medium. This is the story of @ particular view of art averseen by a brand of modernism famously argued for Dy Clement Greanberg.® ac ea 92 etn cent, Monts ng ee aoe Kn oC a Ba Se ee aE ee ton of the erique of he commodky forn and tha sveyie over the ownership of the means of production, determinations Cokermingus with a Marxian medel of class siricgle. If class forma. ‘ors no fonger animate the mades ef poliieal ar today, the other Sie ofthis development isthe return of mais as noming bt 5. aise" eme¥ing aut aNd banishment of he conceat ofthe polite! Mane meters, es If Wis Would provia = cure forthe ansety of modernity, There ia @ novel idea behing this ansiousross curound, fro 8 madem todsy tthe re of which isthe cise of che poltial in cure artiste practice. Recent elaborations on modernity hale fret within the Spece of fess than two decades we hae paveed ‘braugh two endings 0} modemiy: frst, with the collapse of cem- inion end the fall ofthe Berfin Wal vs bora witeas t0 the de. mise of Mania: vision of moeiniy; end saccndly, ate Septem ey 1 2001, came the dissolution of ts leral counterpoint It would a Barbee Indeed to embrace tho tenets ofthese grand ccnslusiena, were itrO% FOF Ne noonelusivenees of histry sell. No doubt, the Grehiectaral metaphor thet accompsniad bath downfalls of two af {he most snfisent poical madtons ofthe rodamn oro hes tame ‘fen Eat) in re ond image, modernity a8 a specter that hange over the global collactive consciousness. Whet has emerged, however, is dffsenttram this and is not insigrifcart for cual poftss. The schism masts a deaper anit about the period wa can call global madernty. This anztety ig musliest in an emerging battle within the ertical cemprehensicn, fn Bion. ard discussion of contemporary af, namely the appos. Ton between ethies end aesthetics, o the conjunction of bork Recent, discussione of the relation beanesn ethics and ascthatco, &r Politics end pastics in contemporary art tae proliferated The arent UpSUra® linking the ethical and the aesithetio—or the more famifer conunction ofart and palites—serhops, ones acinathing Te whet Int Rogoff has desortyed as the neture of “unbounded! ey a‘undiscpind work” common tohath aretic practios and te ‘ruts Jocations today This unboundedness, whieh | hava Chsgnatd elasnere asthe ceaicn of urnomelnest spar resul af wideocale global madernity of peoples, qoods, and ideas permanenty on the mave, ia constant iroulation, recontic ration, tessellation."6 The condition of unhoreliness could also 28 ierprted in anotver way! in che alienation of our eubjectve *®° The human as a ghostly Bresance, ag more than 3 metaphor for illagelily, a8 a sadow Eetore the fin marks the separation beween those identified ag Negal and theretore properly human (Europeans, white men} ancl these (Alricans, Arabs, Roma, Asians, women, geys, and lesbians, ete} who must seek the status of namralgy fer thai inclusion inta, ‘the hurren family by frst excrcizing they strangeness, foreignnesa, othernase, Thus, while it has spetlighted violations by the German, government of European Usion human tights aiva concerning the Yepatriaton and deportation of refugees and ceylum seekers, kein Tensch ist illsget works against the German immigration ‘av in the rams of 6 larger universal etnical principle, ana that eapuelates ‘the illegelization of deoperate immigrants. The given doxa of eles- sival political artis that it intavenes within the means ot procustion anc in the cracks tstwaen tha teotani> plates af cless farmmallons, TEU Gooicaen omy ote rare chore toa heme Pease EN ve Erp ee ete lf el one mga Resin Coe te pe Ee eS a Sneeomiy/tset rn Maras AK EN YE REYES! TNO 28Stwas not until the rise of fascia that it becarne clear that the Sublect of colic! art was abou: ta ba tranetormed, lt never recog- nize, however, the Importance of othemess and it potent political ‘reality within the visual field, Caraful apotataa| ot artis formations today mates it clear that ney dete frem classical ideas of poli! at st lesot in one respect. The target of this art iS not simply systemic, centered on the poltieal ently of the state, iss ideology, apparatus. agents. Rather, invoves & perhaps surprising prnciple OF the universalization of he coroapt of the human evoked by human rights. Its cn behalf cf such 9 univeceat principle ‘hat Inettufons and organs of glodal multinational and teansnaticnal business ard policy bodies—such 3§ the Intetnational Mcnatary Fund, World Beni, er Nike, Shel, Exxon-—have slso become (argets cf attack, The methods, smployed in the neme of art to address some ot these issues corcequenty have had 10 change, boul in thelr form end orientation. ‘tis in thio eonse thet Rogoft's Nation of the unboundes end undisciclined work is a briliently novel conceptualication of vihat inary think of as tha conjunction between politics and ert er sihics and aesinetos” Sich ware, In My view neither senaationalizes aesthetios nor spectaoularizes the ethical ‘The Detentitorialized Site of Art and Politics: Art in a Time of Crisis A distinguishing festure of the ervical and aesthetical in current Practice is ts deterrtorialized nature. As | have heen arguing, this kind of wort is lanus faced: it’s eansoaus mt its orm and right 8 an aftistc interveriion while inbaicating its relation 10 the con ‘tions and tepographies of recepton bayond tre traditional bound: dries of art. shoud also be noled thet this kind of werk is distnty difsrant from the olf poliieal art of the Eurogean avant-garde entemporary whish tegerdad fascisin as the enamy ard whose polis were bese on the actiderty of working cfass struggles, wich it hoped ‘would feac to the relation of tue umzala of proletaran rule and culture. The procuctiviet madal of she Russian avant-garde in the Soviet Union etter 1917 wea inspired by this utaplanism, The same was the €28@, for Instance, in Maxioe whese revolutionary ertsis such as Diego Riera and other Muralsts were concerned wih the relation of ¢ worker's (fe through the paar cf 2 peesent revolution. Or In the Resistance Ait modelin South Aftice where art under anartheid hamessed its energy ta the overthrow of a totaltetian and racist regime Frarlly beceuse of the revolution in communication technologies, aft and poliics are now much mote traady conesmed with con Gitons of social Ife: the environment, hurran rights, globalization, Facism, neBonalisr, and social ustice. In their combination thoy {centity and intaract with disciplinary fermations that distend the formal boundaries of official anistio disccu'se. Nevertheless. the Surprising, end some would ergue troubling, aapect cf this Kind af work is its tendency to Tanstorn ethical ecncoms into aesthetic deviors and viee versa, To the degree that ertéte cdterialze on the neturs of social Ife today, the amtical abitty af such actfane to effect change remains, thus far, in rermend. But whet interests me Inthis develocrmant is not whather actvis or paltically invested arists express the “correct nosion’ with the corr2et forms, Instead | am interested in ther awways-steted intorest in an ethics roated in the canception ot bio-peiies 28 Thus, when we attemptto gasp the enjunction of ethios and aestiatics, oF poles and posiics, we must h erfect racegnize tho importance and glabal dimension of the discourse of human rights Consequently, even when what artists spotight may be locel— Such as Alifedo Jear's wark on Rwanda end the Union Carbide * Reulattns ton et eter emcees commedigester in Bhopal, India the tactical pubic Is always global Throughout tis catesr Jaar nas made the ertique of predatory sapialism and human rights violetions signeture ieaues in his werk, In Let There Be Light: The Rwanda Project, 1294-1909 Jear ‘wee one af the first (and remains one ofthe tes) artists 19 respond ‘tp the mage kilings that tuck plave ver a Deriod of ona hunched days in the surnmor cf 1994. Artists like Jar, (nere the art of Hens Haacke is cruciel) work st diselosirg the comples transnationat wea that fluminates no: aniy their project but also the inveresis of muttinationat formations, Take, tor exampla, Haacke's sculpture US. tsolatian Box, Grenade, 1983, ¢ cuise of plywood that evokes the cleuatrophobia of confinement and imorisonment made in the sftermath of the U3 invasion of Senace, Whether in laer's ar Haacke's work, what we witness i a new kind of thinking thet has inverted and tansformed the od mexim: “al politics Is local toa local polfics is naw gobal." The universl umbralio of human Fights offers e peculiar sort of proteetion to local causos once Choy are reframed in @ global! conte, Notice, lor instance, that many lassrocts social movements snd Non-Governmental Orgarizations may have their specific contexts fn local concitions, but often appeal to the Global putlie echora ir orderto make eifecie thelr individual projects, Sub-commandante Mateos ond his Zopatistes in Mexico, the AIDS activists’ campsign against pharmaceuticals in South Africa, the lave Ken aro Viiwa’s Movement for tho Sunvival of Ogoni People {MOSOP} i Nigena are recent examples of this traneformetion. Even the mast odigus of thase interests, Al Gaede, uses the apoes! af variats local emi-madern islamic fundamentalisms lo expert its universelizing ethos of terror and spirtual redemation, Wéie'e polltesl or ethisal considaraticns are spactically fere- ‘grounded in an arist's work—for example: in the work of the realist Painter Leen Golub; Paul Stepiortn’s graphite drawings during his years in Seuth Afica; Luis Camnize's invesigetions ot torture in 31 Atvto tar bee Tr on ta a gn ea ee eR Roe 8, Urguay during that vounty’s cictatorship: Wile Doherty's videoo ane photographs dotaiirg the sectarian contict in Nathern lisiend: Marthe Resier’s reworking of images of the Viemam War ae a measured oritaue of American nos. colonial cfersive in Soutreast Asia; Chris Burden's Viemam War countermemorial; Willa Kerividge’s drawings tor projection, which feoue on the legacy of acartheid the solemn periormence of the ecivist group Mathers of Plaza do Mayo's deily vigll In Buenos Ares in behaf of thoir Aiseppeared chicten ding Argeriina’s “dnt war’—hurman rightc as such flames the relationship between the sroducer ard receiver ‘Alsi, Such a5 Leon Goluo, have made resisanoe ta tna coneeant ‘hieat of dleapneerence of puisic memory a ‘est forthe strase between the ethical end aesthetic, Golub’ unvoalitically peinted tealist poinings are conceived spesificaly as countorpsirtingo te the opacity of formolist etsreciion in wich ha specitisiy of the human form hed bsen anruiled. For four decades he ras cemon- ‘trated his commitment to indaxing and te-slaboeting nn unser tied, agtated paintings, media imagss that ropreacnt in exiremls the preoariousness oF he human body under velot alate reoression In uch key series of works a5 Vieinem (1972-74), Meracnarias (1875-87), Interrogetions (1985-86) ana White Squédls (1982-67), we ate confronted by 2 panoply of fragmented and lselated images roiected against the beckdrop of nevara! suraunuings, al cf them Snectis to and concsinad with the deracineticn of humen lie. is es f bavi naked power and naked io sre eimultaneuelyisa'ted in the ghostly autines of His sparsely psirted, distrosced, cleaved Servacsus, Lkeise, Sopioit's monary drawings—a set ef rodce the drawings of fragments of Steve Bko's mutilated body after his death through terture—alay a sitslary mnemanie rele 26 Golus's and ate no lass power for their overt poltica claim te represent. ing violations of the body. Simtar ccncemna ere the irerne around ‘whieh Gemnitzer's FFom the Uruguayan Torture Seroa ia defied. In sch a! these artistic pastiors, whet stands cut are individual tesponsee te nakad pavier and nekes Ife in representation, Tha rooney: are ran Rate Rave TAnCoesymiy A>} i ethical questions posed by much recent art are never abour the cusslion of the aasthetic merit of te work alone. Nor iat just about linking the eentent of the Work to the moral clain ot the art. Even ifthe omgiresl grounding of such content is never ltsralizad ac 8S 10 assume unmitigated claims 3f uuth, ihe appearance cf such ‘content in visual represontation always represents a risk for both the ert and artist, Instiaxion and spectator identity Folrtics and the Rediscovery of the Human in Contemporary Art | have argued throughout this wxtahat the location of the ethical in contemporary art, of the opposifon of the ethical and assthoti, arises precisely from the legaay af human fights ingotar as the Getecory of the human is whatia at stoke. !ivant to offer turther ‘szamples (or consideration in this Sigeussion. When we treme certain types of antste practige arwund issuee of identty—be ie Gulural, gender based, sexusity, rece, ethnicity, and nationaliy we are basically witnessing the seilcus force given eech ai these domains oy human rights and its evolution inthe last tity years Each of mese domaits defines itsdf around end agzinst pnniples of power and rlehis. Consider, for inetance, certain activitlg of srtets, such as Group Matefal, wh tate up methads of achocacy sround politcal subjectiviy education and necith in their work, or 2etMist groupe Goh es ACT UF, vito work on the basis of erlight- Shed seFinterest in matore concerting the AIDS criss that avaged Ihe gay community in the 19803, or Clsude Lanzmeni’s apie film 97 the Holoceust, Shoah. Evan Mollwood films such as Srhvacier's ‘Ls which tok on the fole of bestirg witness on behalf of victims of the Haloceust was founded upan identity discourses and the shroud of human rights Wat ervelotes each of them. The dectebi- [ring and subversive rapture oten zescosted with the work of Pelle GonzalezTorree (one of the most thorough and compley cone vergences of he tension suraurding ethics and eesmetics): the ghostly Monologues an race and identity in Glen Ligen's coal dust and stenciled paintings; te ambiguous anit lugubrious archives thet make up Christian Boltansk's work ara caught in tis tension, Generafizad images thee appeal to our sense of humanity" or categorically reinvest the corditon of the human wth contingency, "WOKKS thal take Up the exoureus of trauma: a fast of the turnesoant flesh of ne wounded body or the wordless scream ai the weness before © catastophe ae ust as equally imoteated in this account ‘Thue, the more practices and discourses af contemporary art ‘ecogniza these catzycrias as lecitinate srtisic sratogioa, the more humen rights wil over remain boty the slen: naratve and epcter ‘hat haunts the ethical and sesthetc in comempovaty art. Pecumenta 11 and the Documentary ae a Form of Unraveling Truth | now wish to consider the effect ofthese questions ec it bears en ‘he reception of documenta 11, for whioh | se-ved as the artiste Sector between 1098 and 2002. To many observers, documents tt ‘wes the cultiration of » development in cortenporaty am ritreh increasingly the documentary torn beseme the damien aristic {erquege, paticulerly in photographic, fm, and video work repre- ‘Sonted in its fith platform: the exhibition, The surplus of modes of the "documentary whother mats'lalist a ndexcal, the ‘avercom, Densatian’ in the exhibition of works witt a “pelifeal agercia," ard te “overwhelming! relationship 10 sacial ite were read as ethical smessages bY the exhiotion orgarszors to a jaded global latist public, Moreover, Such messages were held to ‘wea! the idecloginal Procivitles of the organizers rather than their icarect in tracitionel Rotions of ert. In iact the exhibiton was perceived se that moment when the global lef's "everelical’ zeal and concern with human Fights fed to Severe reduction in the aesthedle naure ofthe art and thus promoted a certain poliioal plecding by tha many documenta: DR unW BPN, amen Fhe a ret a Gnenguyies of = view of the world shapoc by politics more than art: In this account, the documentary net only trumps ar, i subordinates 1 $0 completely that any relation “0 artis viiated ty the curatartal agenca, Understood so tendentoyshy the bliss of the autonomy of art freed irom any sacie-pallical agulatian ends precisely at that moment when the opposition betveen ethics and aestietes is es+ ‘wblished, thus forcing viewers to take sides. Of ocurse, this eosount has litle resemblenoe sither to tho exhibition that my eclleagues, and | cuvatad, or 40 the ane | witnessed along with hundreds of thousands of visitors to Kassel ‘Some time has passed since he final segment: the tit platfomn of documenta 1 opened in Kaggel in June, 2002. It now anpears oosible io reviet some of the pants made by ts critics, Returning to the idea cf the "unbounded" and ‘undisciplined” work, 26 framework around which 19 articulate the gonoral visissftude end Uunhomely condition of contemporary art. the projert of docurrenta 11 was to prove specific Instances of this change. Most of you will Temerber thatthe fiftr platerm was designated 2s the locus af the exhibition, part cf the toad visusi field of documents 11's prejeat ‘You might alse remember thet the logic of the documerte 11 platforms wes parlly based on a eat of dieeursive relationships between ses of thecretical practes and those of visual practice, ach sfie elabaratng on questions and ideas praper to ts own field of discourse, bur also intencgating assumptions accruing 10 ‘the otter fields. Anather efemant of the discursive Is the gursuit in the exhibition, 0 present and argue for works wits an awareness of their own intelligibility in the wil uantant of today’s Word, ‘The discursive was however, net based on the reletivization of ant and poltios, the cultural and the sacial, or even the ethieel and lhe aesthetic. Nether was ft begec onthe usual apeosition between ‘the cemer and margin. The discu'sive was a te employed 10, delineate the correspondence bemeen systems of meering; eween locations, publics, audieness, anc instiustions, It afforded us the ably to be engaged with those diecipinary formations that arise frecisety at the pcint where visual practice ean na longer o'gim ole legitimacy for the hermeneutic functicn of a. | could pethaps say fis is where the votion of the ethioal may 0 Jooated in cosumenta ff, Insafar as te etnical Is concerned in te agoniate exchange between diferent interiocutors he reeion wih the ether, what Foucauh calls, in 2 norvarheisarfal exchange, “recinracal elucidations."® This rolation to the other has alten been exaloted in connection wth the canaept of uth, | ar thinking Of truth nere as akin to how Alain Baciou uses fi a6: ‘the real Brocess of 3 fidelity 1 an event: thet which ‘his Filly produces {orginal falics] in the situation The amanuersis of this tnith J tho atner, evoked by Levinasian eth In our icenttication with ‘the other the ether as a figure to whorn we ewe the possiolity Of tis absolute Fielty. The oartal eancem forthe athes te boing: foranether of which Levinas soaks, is the ground for ‘he principle f te intersubjective mat govems the commuricatve prncigle ct an exchange between two aeople. Thevelare, the concept of truth requires Het tht the ther exists in every inersubjecti, reciprocal ‘exchange, This is « recognition of the basis of power raletens. 0 nat use the other herein an ethragraptical sense. Rather, In the sansa of the recognition af one's own fits in ralation te a= cther subjectvized positon, be ita tat, an artwork, a gpolon ox- change. We initiate each of our interactions in this ragare wih a ‘und of trust in tha integrity of tie subjestvzed pesttion. The oth- 2, than, exists nether ae an aberration not 2s an oonostian. axists, always in dialeatoal relation to muttpee moze of subjec ‘ization Zeus retum to aciou, According to what he toarna the ethic of a vu, the retedonse to the other. ib ho Bicine et enabios He eovaruatan ola ritrgracess .. Pet WAC lands Strate pesos of someane he componone! be wee ney ty ihe arocess af this ruth ® new 5 SREe SSE reece nga ma conte Snes g Shee Rane a ana Ld ee 2 2 cement Bo Rai, tame hand Ft comerWhat be the case, tne grounds of he ethical as euch in documento tt af notin the relativization af ethias and aesthetics, but in # middle cours: the comoosition of te subject Inoueed by the prcoaes of Speatator and the wark of art. Ths means tet documenta Y wes, rather, an acive, emangled field of procedures for which clferent Practitioners andi publics shared responsibility, sometimes in mutual Inieligtetty and sometimes not Such a shared zone ct eaponsibilty is the zone of subestvized pracices, Reality Effect and the Represertation of Social Lite * Now that documenta 11 Fes become historical, inthe sense that ts evaluation befongs bath to the past end the present, we can look beck 1 al its constitstve parte anc begin the teck of unaveling both jis proposals and its public recepsion. When the oxhibitian first opened—to almost universal perrlexity with ragard to te tomporal 2nd epetial density—a common idea came t0 define the aatura cf tha project the ideo shat it was invested In whet Barhes termed “he reaifty effect in its atunemert 10 the representation of social Ie 9 multiple works. Kim Levin, ne ortio of the New York Vilege Voice, prociaimed the exhibition te CAIN Documenta: Linda NNoshlin who oftered a careful reading of werks in the extibticn, caw mages in the exniaition as suppoted by various and expanded Accounts of the documentary. She carecty noted the degree to which many works functioned at he fevel of the relatonstip oe ‘ween images and social realty. Jacpite these, the criticel mise raisal and misapprehension af the structural and critical intent (9 the exfybittnn 10 slebovata on tro recaone why arise aud other imego-matters had become obsessed with realty as such and the Fepresertation of everyday life, alcng with their etects on cortem- Porary consciausness, was notevrthy in this sense. Not only was {the problematic of the documentary eltded as more then an account peas ene ego onanc ntae Eee ee eee ee a ae le Rta Sermren sent Saar ‘Solfetion mevtt SaainrSreses sep ee a 01 Me paltical subjectiviy of ke makers, the exhibition's muttinle Stganization of images, forms, aracticss, and discursive fields was only ate t> be percelved through the rubric of the dooumentery ‘mode precisaly because it cashed withthe Vadtioral understanding of what the work of artis relathe 20 socid veal A Simple tour of the extibiien venues confirms the curatorial Cornerstone of cur projaet, namely to generate in & comprehensive, systematic, taxonomic, and typological fachion and to demonstrate through 4 number of complex morphologies the ways thraugh ‘which the logic af the erchive and document suffuce and penetrate activtios of ort end proveduies of image prottiction in tha last 49 years. The disperete and oftertines antagonistic procedures_—such 28 ene finds in Allan Sokula's Fists Stary, Altrec Jacr's Awana Project Bernd and Hila Becher HolTimbeed houses of the Segen {ncustlet Zone; Jet Geys's Day anc Night ona Day..; Zaria Bhin’s Out oF Gtue, Fiona Tan's Countenance: gloslic leuma Productions's Nunave (Or Land); Black Audia Flim Collsctive's Maraleworth's Song—are not reducible to documentary a3 such A brief excursion into the formal and seoaie conception of each OF the Works cited above provides a fescineting map end cisorierts the reading of the term “documentary* ae a gpecific mode of Photogrephis or filme articulation of realty Jn fact, there are mary more works in the exhibition that even furner complicate the documentarist thrust, For example, Isaac aullen’s probing firs on Daradise and loss in Paradise Omeras, Seve McQueen's double meditation on history labor, and exile in Wester Peep and Canbis ‘Seep, Uke Oringer's Sidasioassago (South East Passage), ¢ melanchole vaversal of the anonymous, abandoned, yet uiving and alive co:nts Of old sfies in the secane world; Amar Kanwar's A Season Outside, 2 wrenching cinemaic tine paism on pantiton blues ected out delly at the Lorder crossing hat separates India and Fekistan at Wegah, tho resut of the last cofatéal act at remancing postcalonial spaces; Eyal Sivan'a The Specialist: Eichmann in Jerusslem are itsembatsembs: Bwende One Genocide Leies. Might AnENBDMHNK BOF Man NS hE“ Goreneamy Aa aeone be consoisd to learn thet sll hese disparate works—ahile surely ‘documentary’ in the limitod sense applied to them by inattentive cfitics—do not as a ‘ule share ir the devalued image machine we often asorise when using the epthet ‘photojournalism,’ espacielly in the predatory form of stalking sensational pioires as a hunter ‘would stalk game? In (acy, an anist lke Touneml Ennecre, who presented in the exhibiticn a study of the giief and mourning surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center, vigorously disputes eny atampt to ascooiats hig work with such en epithet Even the mors benign term “documentary” das not satisty him In terms of what he believes io be the purpose of his phatogrephie ‘work 10 meke singular photogrephic work that sneaks to the authenticity of each given situation to the dagree atthe photo ‘graph san no longer be read as just mere iniormation, vet Chantal ‘Akerman embraces the contradiction with the dosumentary in- herent in fiim firmly in ber cinenstie eractica in which the image s2mves both = heuristic purnose and an zesthetic one. She, wno |s herse the child of Holocaust surviers, makes no secret of her idenutication with victins, wach aftentines Is nereelved as pan of the ideological beggage much dogumentary work carries, Her film D ‘Est, which tracks the endkessness of tie vest emptiness ‘that attended the dissolution of tre Soviet ompie, io remarkable not ‘only for ts oneitie quality, but also for its guity realism. Watching ‘he blue haze that coats the mood cf the tim, ane literally has the feeling of walshing cusk setting on the afterite cf the second ‘world. The filio Gan thersiore be read as a kind of suitima of that ullwedte Verit6, Reality, Affect So ter | have been commenting on one peculiar terminology: the word “documentary” whion was recurrent in most commentaries ‘about images in docurnerna 11, Now what | wish 19 do 1s 10 inboduce + Aso muna e enone tt Ea eee aro ate @ s20cnd term: the rerch word vérté. | srapesa thst wo explore the questions ralsed by tne term casumentary ty interpeflating ft swith vert ‘The tarm dosumentary chan refers ta set of techniques and ‘ypes of images difcctod al, and drawn fom, the “real” world ‘The gensral dispensation of such techniques, end the purloined “realy” they embsim as images, are commonly understand to bbe distncty orpanted te interact with anc commrant crectly on that “sealiy® This ype of work generally is typified by an atthude of Commiserstion with the subject of the documentary, end whera violence or cetastraphe is present with the pain of the subject, that is, ta the real, Such work oo largely fund In the madla Sald to fater to real tings or events in the wote—that i, as evidence Of unvamisted truth ofthe real. But today, with “roy television’ ascendam, the Scope of fs attectve sirutanety makes the documertery mode anpear somehow qusht it eorparison, in same case0 even outmoded due io the delay Iris transmission = However, what haunta the documentary mast is ihe cherge of maudlin maralism directed tite producta Let us dwell fitle on 1his idea of documentary, which despite te cusceptiilty t9 morel "Rallis and appea! to false consciousness of which ite ostioe accuse it, has a very rion and distinguished tration. Almost all tha important photographers of she modsm era—Eugene Atget, Walker Evane, August Sancer, Darathes -ange, Ciene ArbUS, David Galdblat, Rema and Hilla Bacher—have worked within the ecumtentany mode, tf we understand the ratute ofthe documertery made 2s simultaneously analytic and minatic. As such, the documentary has the urigu> position of Setna caught in teuton ‘ogicel geme, which is wo both document arg analiza, to showand dofine and t9 do a0 wth oth agathote means end leo to bo chitvicus of sesthatic. For soma t ig a matter of taste" the rewer the image the more authentic the sirueture af featng it epposedly evokes. For otters, the more discreet and nti-spectaculer the Image, the mare corespondingly distanced Is trom Rs subject, he greater its putetive Ubjectiviy. BLx ven if the most refined aesthet procedures were omployad in 2 work, because of the tendenay ‘to categorize the documentary ae © made of practice consistantly prepared te show and ask meral questions atound vihat it doou- ments, iti the docurrentary as a nassive body of evidence we end up mast seeing. To cenain cathotc Tastes, the more the ethical confronts the documencayy, the mare distance from aesthesicizaton 4k must assume. For such spectators, to sestheticize human suk foring is an chscenity This secuastion is often directed against the work of s photographer lika Sabastie Salgado; lage 90 for Gillog Peress, and it bacomes quite conticversial in the case of Susan Meiseles. Yer when we look at the softore pictires of cisiress ang poverty by the likes of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and other photographers who documantec the American depression in the 1630s, there Ie Ite moral outage in the raduciian of povorty to certain social yaes by urbane, riddle class photogrenhers roughing it amongst the ceected mass of tenant farmers in drought: blighted tenant tarms of tha Sour ar the tenements oF the lace ties, Even Jacob Piis' late nineteenth century moral crusades in his study of the squalor and epaalling ving conditions in over radioed wrronieris of New YorlesLower Eat Siu in How die ite Half Lives is = product of a diffarem type of moral imperative Perhaps this is so because these images, which were mostly from Ddefore 1249, precede the penod of the ciscourse of victms. The opposition bemween the ethical end aesthetic oF the poitical and postic, as | have been attempting 19 demonstrate, has a jong running hiatoty. But the vehemerce af this opposition today in documentary forme of wark is irfermed mostly by the tise of ' ciscourse of viatims scattered all over the global peripheries that saturate the mecia today. And with this rise of vistme a peculiar form of scopophotia, an entiocalarcontri Vaion hes setled over the field of the documantary##] do nct, however, wish to recuporate the documentary form wit all 4s unresolved anamaliss within what many would delleve to De @ more superior gesthetic system, For me, the documentary as such hs its own Itegriy, even tf ng cams of truth remain dubious The documentary fs also dominated ky @ view that itis ¢ kind Cf testmeny which, on tha one hend, preduees @ meral imperative in the teltale details of the raal, and on the ather, eeserts truth nthe Manner in which it conveys and conducts its judgment of events and depictions of people, things, abjects, Even if the documentary is never incontiovertbly called to present ¢ moral judgment but to document, 10 recoid, 10 archive, or simply to present, the over \whelming ethical ground it olaire often eubtands mere nuenced postions, The documentary admits diverse srucutes of reference into ‘methods: for example, svidenos, testimony beating witness, Above alt itis minérronic. The documentary’s ‘elaorsship 10 hs subject, in opite of its bold assentions of uth claims, is en embiguous one One of the most shocking pictures | have ever encountered in the media was reproduced almost = decace ago an the front page of The New York Times. The picture, taken by Kevin Caner, 6 South Aitfean photographer, shons @ yourg, exhausted Sudanese refugee child bert over on his hands and knees. The chillna image, whieh | oan cniy now conjure from memory, is a tighly corrpased picture, in vihich the circularity of the comera cuts to @ ciegonal 30 a8 10 align the looming frame of tho chid, with that of a vulture standing behind him, abserving, waiting. Two things come beck ‘to me from that 6ecade-alc emerience cf the photageach and my ‘eeling 3 a Soectater of the Image: he rerrotenese and ambiguity orb Ganzat Ea anin sin Son lpn omer woe a easiest i i i é i : i :of the phatographer irom the scene and my ovsn haunted curiosity of the ultmate fate of the child. Tha latter whet the documantary never discloses’ the aftermath. The receprian of thie picture scrane the world was snsctacular I yeised a range of etfical issues, the most obvious of which was: what, f anything, did the phatograaher do 10 save the vulnerable abendored chil, Moral outrage atthe picture and at the photographer wes mingled with dumb sdmiration of the photographer's courage in rezording such a herrawing scene, for rescuing the child, if only ac irage, from the anorymity of his fate, Oj course, the phoingranher ‘won all kinds of awards for his effort Garter was cvenanelmed bythe atientian and the debate surrounding the picture. He cammttsd suicide shorly thereattan* Memento Mori: The Archive as » Site af Mourning |hovo used thi example ta rage te unonsnerable question of the ocurnantay’s ambiguity to he euject and to poco the auodtion bate itmakes any sense 16 colapse ethics and aesthatig in Single discussion of art's rélationssip to its subject, Hers. | want 1© cal otenton to Giisian Botonskis uy pleura ef" Holocaust ohilden and pars of Gerhard Aloters exhaust archive as" Botanck’s macave reogantator of photagrahs of aanymous chit, which burs and exposes he faccs of hncosnoa, comes closest to the use of the dooumertary ag 4 method of bearing witness and a 109! of memovializetion: the erchive as mnemonic machine Flster's Ads eances a err rlavarenig ths rrochinen hate delteratéy colaases the brdeis between he pikalo ond Aub, te peraonel Bed poitca, te quodcien end banal wih the prfourd. His an ates of “perpetual oommentary? onthe subect of acing and the tanton of imeges In coneting social memary inte atermath of Nazism and stn madern culture. Ags isan mvertry ot messh, inexheustalepotetal thet mer eres ee ce neat au Ee eeminrs ta See epee A Se PE CAA” CR 8 SR HE ether forecloses mecning due to its unwieldy hetercasneity or meripulates the scales anc legibiity of whatls represented, thereby actively reading ther, 9 arfori, as nothing tut an arbiyary |uxt3- position of maaninglaas images. BLA is Atiog in its absessive docu: mentary attampt at collectivizaion of perecnal and public memory, ‘ruly arbitrary? Or does fis effect of dietenee not assume a offical ‘atiemat to bring ta near a great degree of complesity in the Secondary Career Images, outside of their ccntaxt as reference, as memento mori? Such memento man ig registered in the early beginning of this ambitious historical project. In panels 16, 17, and 18, Richter shows us nevespaper images ofNazi soldiers publically hurrliating their victime and of the libereted Nazi camps, which depict emaciated survivors arrid jumbied piles of bleachad corpses of tase who did not survive, And years leterin pensls 470, 471, 472, end 473, images cf me Baader Meinnof gang join the roll-call of the memorialized. Panel 471 is 71 fact # tepraduction of Rlohter's painting trom @ newspeper reproduction af Ulrike Meinhor's sulclce, ‘The ternporal lag between the Nazi camp imegee and thet of the Terrorist gang does nathing to allaviate the context of the histovicel space trom which this comparatively banige Investigation is being conducred. As if ta foreground what Hannah Arendt icenttied as the benality of evil Richter imersperses thraughout tha breadth ot his magnum opus images of domestic trarquifty, his studio, holiday picturas, pictsree of hie own werk, oto4? Blindspot, Blank Stare, Scapophobia, and the Hole in Vision How are we (0 read the Images and historeal ccounts both Boltanski and Richter seek to ceindex? Surely, 12 s2e Rlcnters Herculean affert at structural collecitvization af private and public, personal and poltical histories as disinterested and merely ambiguous is to be blind to R. Such 2 reaction oxemplifies 3 consistent aperia in contamnparary an's approach to the documnen- ‘ary. A remarkable body of literature has besn developed araund 12 Seefmm net sma iden ate ne SBN een, Uscimniy it oro Harn sad Ta Cameothis question. The ftalian phlosophar Giorgio Agamben makes 6 crustal point about Auschwitz in this context He writes that "(he ‘aporia of Auschwiz ts, deed. the very spatia of historical knowl ‘edge; @ nor-coineidence beween fact end uth, betwean veriication and comprehension. Perhaps, then, this crisie, this confusion between fact and ‘nith, variation and comprahensior linked te the decumentary may nave its source at the fevel in whieh the documentary conraris ‘the monstrous, the absolute, ind'ssoluble reduction of human suf: fering to ebject status and speatacle. was Foucault wn wrote \voeiferousty about the incignty of speaking for otbers. This poses the following question to Sonteg's fascinating and ccrusoeting seltreflexive analysis oi documentary piotures in her recent book Risgerding the Pain of Others whence dees one agen oneself up 10 another's pain, a process wnich again recalls Levines’ ethics of being-Yonthe-other? if the documentary is a testimony, a8 Sonten argues, to # elerrity, 8 record of an ever, a representation of an actualty,itfe exegetio and seemingly eidetic. Yet tis neither mestery 7ror totality. As such, it an only communicate 28 a freament Haw co we trust or question that wrich the coourentary presents: bbevcnd lind ascentance of iis ethical correctness ar abelurate distrust of its polities? The neurralzng assumption of 2 speatsior ‘hip, which averts its gaze and tums askance from the documentary bocause It deaply distusts it as @ moral accusation, carnot at the same time judge it. To avert one’s eves, 10 look askance, is equally fn crhieal stance; R is to ask not tm be accused, ul jy Le out ‘taminated, not 10 exist purely for the.cther, to be deansad from the gult of tacking at human misery rélisved from the burlen af being- forthe-other, Yet there Is a level at which tls aigevowes, when excessively intergreted in the diteston of the non-western other (28.6 ertic, ike Matthew Higgs did in relation to images in documenta 1!) registers ata deeper level two kinds of disavowal: a ‘sospophobio inettertion ty the saecificly of the imege andi ¢ reflex: ive xenophobic unable to imagine the cther az praperly human. This tuining away, this hole in vision, 99 | heve argued earlier in ‘his text, perhaps has ts basis not in any superior morel victon, bbut is precissly a arophylantic ta the obscenity of the human ruin. Lei us retuin to conventional documentary fmages, more speoitically photographic and cinematic (2s well as video) images ‘that capture slices of what some call "Lie real world: The root of the tam "documentary" fs the document fh its literal term i is @ record or evidence of something that praves tha existence or the ocourrence of thatwhich the dacumant records, henea the claim of “ruth” often imputed ta.the documentary. Eut ia dacument is never to make immanent a singular overwhelming truth. Iris sirmply to collect in different jorms 2 sertes of statements {what Foucault calls "statement events" as the enunciative function of the archive] leeding to tha interpretation of hiatoriaal everts or facts. The documentary 28 such is never outrighty a eleimn of tuth, namely, that this haonened: therefore, itis rus. In its lentess singula ‘ation, in the guise of bearing winass ta that which is pert ct our realty, even it may be ouside our Immediate experience, the documentary oleims tor fsalf the ourden of trv in that it dvecss itseli to what it sous a6 recordable reality, To documant isto oifer statements that stand fer evidence of ‘something: a truth, a testmony to same truth. tis impossitle for ny image to fully dlgclass the reelity that hangs Ike a pall ever the ‘extended held in wbich al images exist irespectve of Guy Daboro's laim shat we all new ive in 2 world of appeerences where all soca! Felationships have disappeared into the soreer of mediation. Lats take any ‘cheumentary’ image, say a War scone in ‘Mighenisian ‘end, 28 a rule of thumb, tast its veracity. On the one hand, one can & SB NGa ak J Ain be ot hehe cog mm A inn Gi See sc Bie ah rh 2 84 Dron: BORO Hun RK AF Ta nena AL #4Jook at seanes of the war's camege: ruined streets, piled-up corpses, cisconsolate populace and some away with the rasconelale belief nat what the scenas show is the misery of war. At the ‘same time, the same image can never fully support whatever the ratlonale that suaports the war, such 2s the moral correctness of rooting out terrorists. Wht do we see when we behold the prone, dead corpes af a Teliban soldier: evidence of "here is ¢ dead terrorist o¢ *here is an Islamic maryr'? The eboyance into which such an image is test is ne longer merely semantia or cimply Ideological.” The photograph is nct at any rate a codeless massage or a messageless cooe In a Sort 21 cantradicton, despite the e'sisience of the eye ta gee into and through such @ sesne, 10 resding of t would ever prove adequate nor surimarize the import cof ts message, Literally ouch scenes induce a kind of blindness, ‘excavate a hola in vision, Becsuse of the vaot oxtendad vioual field in which such images exist, it appears quite the case that a ‘cooumentary can record something that is rue but fall 10 reveal the tuuth of that something, In the sense that t may actually misteD~ resent the subject in question. This is the given paradox of tne dosumentary, namely its lack of sef-evidence, This was, | suspect, eit of the antipathy towards the deaumentery mode critics aaso- ciated with documanta 11 ‘The Documentary and the Scriptiole leis already difficult enough that professional docurentarisis continuously work ¢ thin line between compromise and hercksm, that i wild Lu tie cache of images sroduasd by mer, The vast ‘cuantiy of amateur imegas trays the truthfulnoss and the facticity ct tha documentary. The advent of echnologicsl abilty ha meant the wide avallebilty of cameras to casual users, As such, the vocumeniary, a8 Barthes says cf cerain forms of wring, is “scria- tle because it tums the reader Into a kind of writer, that is It makes the reader wish to carry tuther the astor wing, eneoutaa- ing tha imitation of the act of writing The cocumentary could also be porcelvad ag scriptbis in that tinoreacirgy turns the casual spectator ints an axpar witness. t encouragae all inde of ects of wanting to turther the work of documenting, creating new ner Tatives of the reat world, adcing, af ft were, 1 the vast nody of evidence. In a sense, everyone who possesses 8 camera could, by defintion function as» documentatis, A fangus exemple at ‘soma auch tanafarmation of che dacumentay genre by whoever possesses a camera is George Holiday's video reaord ol Redney King being beaten by 2 group cf Los Angeles police offoore. But 44088 thé mere passession of a camara and shoating the reat ‘world imbue Us Immediately wn authorty as modem day truth teers? This wag the dilemma of Holliday as @ witness, with his mechanical eye, He wss 00 buoy filming the scene cf she assault to bother s2eing it with his ov eyes, nstaad the comers ceme ‘a repvace his vision, erally his capacty to see. To meva then from ‘he passive pestfon af te one who Watches, who gazes at such a scene, oF ae the lecelve” ofits Imagas on screen to a producar of those images [sro shift into a remerkaule position of resaon sitilig, Such reeporstoly is what made Hellidey not just a proper wwirnass but also a double witnoee whose two sets of vision must be corroborated according to tha mysterious warkiags of the law, “The positon ofthe douisle witness, | beliave, is what sets up the opposton benveen art and documentary head cuite Recuenty uring the days of ne opening of dosumenta II, and stierwerds; the ides thot the colecion of images, which erties had organized Under tha rubrie of documentary ore essantioly two ‘hinge: |1) hey ate ‘senprible,° meaning that anyone wih 2 camera oan alac record Images of atrocties or poverty but not everyene can be an artist {na convincing way. n a sense ths is @ deng-ation ofthe technical {acilty which mechanical reproduction promotes; (2| this Sersity sm ramonte su RS OPS at ranean: soa, amen he ate “"conaNEoS ANof the documentary, especially its mimetic proslvties, cemoves it fram tha raalm of art. But for seme cftica what eotualy grctee is ‘ot simply the provincial art vareus documentary ergumant, but tho aucacity of any image to designete realty ta which viswers heve limited and afentimes no experierce of at a. The dacurnentery for sucn people relates onty to & shalow kind of tum, cue Te Its dependence an causality. Act, 69 the argument goes, evidences a deeper kind of truth, for itis nct dependent on eny external deter rminant othe: than its own internal realty. This kind of argument is femiliar to many af us who at ane time or anather have been con fronted wih the onpasiton between artas something specific ent Unique end documentary as something thet manilests only a kind cf sccial concern with limited creative purchase. | cannet winoly dismiss the argument that many works in documenta 11 ean be conhused wih the documentary mods. Some oF the works cen be thought as such insofar as tha devices, te stringing and sequencing of imaces or the namrative procedures of certain analytical of concestual frames of carain works, use material drawn direoty fom the sal world at large. Herein les ry conn distinction. rather than aoaeping exclusively the tern docu: rmeniary as a way to understand the manner i which the exhibition purportedly privileged the documentation cf tho real word or tho analysis of gccialragliy, |wish to address the documantary versus artissue by inserting into the felc of documenta 11's visicn the concept of vere Verte nas been defined a6 Uh. BU sIs0 I eters (0 Melkeness, 4a trssness to fe In te leter dehniton, is predisposed taveras mimeticiam. For exarrple, in French, vérté slaa means'te ative 19 tbe ttus to life in art efforoor d la vdrté en art. Shilarly vénté refers to realism, to reet life, naturalism, eutherticty, pragmatisn, vetisrmituda. In te dooumectary nod2 we are presertly resewing, vésté hovohes also the kind of documentary practice horn In France in 18002 known as cinéma uéité, which blurs the ine tenween reality and simulated realty ‘The meéning of the tar “documentary” that was of ahilosoph- {cal intorost to our main purpase—and | beliave this was cernon- strated throughout the entire lengh and breadth of the project, in all the piatforms, publiestions, aymposia, werkshops, ete—reiers to Agerban's idea of bare life or neked He. Bare lita or naked life, ’s such, Is connected to that dimersian of experiance, which he defines as form-otite, “e life Tat can never be separated dram ite form, a ife in which itis never possible to Isolate Something such és naked lite ”= Bio-polties, then, is both the conceptual envelope and he ablosophical determinant far how the loeca term "documentary" came 10 inhabit such a palpable space in ths galleries of tha oxht- bition. The hinge for the exammnation of naked or bars life is me vérté/documentary space So, an the ane hand, inthe idea of varie ‘6 oonfront the conditions of "tuutn" es a process of unraveling, explaring, questioring, probing, analyzing, diagnosing, 2 search for tnath er, shell we say, veracity. Far the dooumentary mode, on ‘the other hand, there is a pumosive, forensic insinaticn con- ‘cemed essentially with the recording of dry facts to be submitted tothe vévié committee, It ig here that the ure relationship between documentary and Weiilé beoame clearer, for hey egch deting the relationship betwoen the spectator and the image—wvtat In Carnere Lucica Barthes definad ac tho studium—the interplay betwen {ect and tah. Comprehensian and veritication is tha aghated field 01 the stuciumm, for “to recogrise the stucfum ie inevitably t2 en- ‘counter the photographer's Intentions, to enver into hatmony with them, to approve or disepprove of them, but always to understand them, to argue with them within myself, for culture (Irom which the studium derives) is a cantract arrived at between ersators and consumers” This is what governs tha relationship between the documentary and vert, since there is nothing inherently tue or 5 fphpaper wn toy een, me oy Bet nee tin mag Rete Ne Yan 5 t I 3 : i i i E ;‘actual in the documented mage ifthe eurpose af such a docu rentetion doos not further ask the viewer to approach such documentetion a6 net only just s act cf something real in the world, but alse something tus in te scclal condition cf that world which fs dificult to sunnor: ha single Fm rame or phota- rani image. Isthis helds tue, pemaps ther the response a the documen- ‘ary rade in documenta 11 may Jead us to assume thatthe seour she persistence of whet many care to see as documentary in the exhibition alioady points to an extaustion of the moda, an ox: haustion that nct only cornplicates the viewar's relationship to the partulsr social world being examined, but in Yact explodes that social werls as nothing HUT 8 body of excess, Thus To resell rom ‘he documemary is to return 10 doubts we 22ch harbor about he nature ofits representations of evens oF the world as real and thorofore true. Tha apprehencion ic even more acute in tha context of the general contol and regulation of the media by powerul interests To dishetiave what is presented as the nuth about the wets may i fect land itself to cstrust o° he messenger rather than ‘he message, The lass thet documentary expases truth about the world in favor of an excess af realty over which wwe have litle controf and even fess of @ choice of ful comprehension, the more i egore that spectators turn irom t Epilogue In conclusion, it rright be imaorantto restate the view thet the role often assigned to documentary forns exisis In Ye iension beween, their aesthetic intention and ethica gostion isé-vis the subject of the documentary. The second point about the documentary form eeneerns ite mnemonis function ir relation to the archive that brings Into visibility the melatiorshia stwaen images, coauments, and gystems of meaning. Butt also involves a struggle betwesn wo irtesovable postions in our n=ws-salureted, mediated word W.1. T Mitchell in his essay, The Fhotographic Essay. Four Case ‘Stuotes, began fig searching assesemant cf the photographie mediums and lanyuaye By positing the ide hat “the relation of photography and larguage Is ¢ prinslpel ste cf stuggle for value ‘and power in contemporary representations of realy; itis the place where images anc! werds find and fosctheir conscience, thelr aesthetic and athical idemtty" The question could be asker! ‘when do images lose their “conscience, thei aeathate and cthisal icentty?"* This is @ question that does not have any answers thar are nar unheptuly speculative In spite ot attempts to discredit the place of the documentary image in exhibikons of contemporary ait (in my view a highly dubious deral in an alieagy prox word of images and usage), tie broed catagory afimeges in documenta It nevertheless surpass she documentary reflex. The complex variety ‘ spproaches to be tound in the genre in Reef points to tho importencs of adjustng the recuctve prejudices tet strip images down to only their functionalist fermat. This wee precisely wnat we four in the lengthy research and communications with aniste, theor'sts, octvsts, architect, insite tions—across cultures and continents, @saipines end commuritis, insttutions and networks (lotrel and informal: There are no fad messages thet atach to the designation documentary. We worked with erists ard thinkers producing Ideas ane images on an un- dorstanding of their practice within the broacer parameters of the changing rolaionship between artist and auciense, discourse and language, addressing quostiona that were fof less precoated on predetermined meanings, but open to interpellstion to cthar ecivtes, actions, events, and discourses. When an arist group like Hitt Favattes emerges in Senegal t2 question the atficecy of the indi vidual artist's refetion to his context ef production ard public what dace ther alliance withthe rural uomnanity of Hamdallaye in Senegal mean, and how does it shovr these comglsx reiavons of power? And by whet maare does La Groupe Amos in the SLT a peu Meo Same etn ne : : i iCemacratic Renubiic of Conco communieete to their audience the ‘work it praduses in the nme of actng on benalt of Congolese cil society: organizing public manfestaions; producing documentary Fong an gender and sexusl relationship, ooonomis production, and flons of labor and capital; conducting clinics on derrocraey end developmert; teaching workshops an gender equality, leading wore haps on tolerance as the frst contin of a demecrarie soo: ‘ paricipating a3 observers in the peace negotiations benween the caiterent factions of rebel novemnenss thet nave made the Demo- cretic Repullic of Congo ungorernanls? How do we apprehend the important proposals of Park Fiston working in the suburbs of Hemburg in a long-running erojact to mobilize the marginalized ‘communtiy of St. Pauli against the gentrification of their neighbar- hond by speculative real estate verhures. proposing insteac ¢ park rather than another bland modernist erchtecture mat weakens ‘he link fetween social relationships and communty identity? In the seme eftlisive spirit of urban and territoviel analysio, we tind tho important project of Fareed Amaly From/To, working in col- Ishoration with the fmmaker Rashid Masharaw\ on # rearing of the scattered trajectories of Palestinien dispersion and fragmentation into mutiple cornmunties ot exils ané diespora, Or the Malian group Muttpicity in ¢ provocative attempt to retrace: and reconsstuct the ‘vagedy ond les of reigrants and refugees whose ilegel smuggling ship sank ord dieappearad during one night of tempest in tha Clandestini basin af the Maditarranzan sea in Scfid Sea. From Alejandra Fiere and Coina Petascus L'Asscciation (des a8) wich contems tne poltical and cutural subjectivity of the Kurdish community in Turkey, rendered as 3 poetics ot social and poltical analysis of repregantavan to Reqs Media Collective's instalation on the Coordinates of Everyday Lie in Delhi, which abjures the idsolagical torieriaization of marginelity imposed by tho stats on urban forma; ta Black Audio Fira Collective's probing docurren- ‘ary fim, which investigates the catses of olack urban rots dung Mangeret Thatcher’ rule in Handsworth Songs; 10 Trinh T. Minnyha’s ‘itm, 2 meditation on alow sme and cultural spaces thriving ouside the totalizing gaze of glaballzation in Noted Gpaces: Living is Round ‘1D Allen Sekua in Fish Story, tracing tha cantainerized mato: of glob af labor Naws; 10 sonic and visual fields whch act az mnemonia \ifagets in Cralgle Horstiele's E/ Hierro project, Thomas Hirschhorn in Bezadte Monument, ¢ materialized documentary decicated 10 the Ho and werk of the French phifosopher; or ihe discourse o! an Affican claim to mocerity enacted in the Libary and Museum Snog sections of Meschac Gaba's Musoum far Conternporary Afiean AMT oF Walid Raec/Atlas Group's deoumentary fictions in-Missing Lebanese Wars which prays cn the menipaktion botwsen the warring factions of Lebanon, and the struggle for contrat of the archival memory of the civ war in order te genetrete the larger “sruth" of that civé conflict These are just some of many examples, Fath of these artists in documenta 11 empleye the toa's of the documentary and the function of the archiva a9 procedures fer Incuctng new flows and transactions hetwean images, toxte, Rartatives, Covurnenns, sletemnents, events, cemmunties, institutions, audiences, And eech confounds the so'e othe dacumemtary in ‘ctablishing a hierorchy between imeges and antistc forms, between ethics and aesthetics, poitica and poetics, truth and Fiction, In TeCt in each of the individual positions and works mentianed throuahout this text, what stands out the moet is the remarkable ‘cunssiency of concern wth social Ie that 82 miure of poltical interest (Armmaly, Sekula, Jaer); sociological (Rags Media Caliective, Multiplicity, Black Audio Fim Gollecuve, Oninger.Igloolié lsuma Productions}, ascthetic (McQueen, Julien); and erchival (Je! Gey). Above all, is the conesm with tha athes, the fidelity te a wruth that the documentary ceaselessly constructs and deconamucts. Let me end wih Martin Jay's eloquent and succinct ramsrk in which he ceurions that “There is "no vw from nowhere” far even the mast ‘sorupulously ‘detached! observer"? And so itis with al of us ‘who at ono tims or snather survay the 2uin ef modernity: Thare te £ i [ : i i ino here from which to view disinierestedly at elsewnere that purportedly is the province of the cacumentary Vision, whether blind ar seaing ie always invested ath a ‘unction of apprehending tha visual ina manner far mots extnshe ard complex than what the eye ultimately seas. And what muihs can images tell us when ‘hey are drowning in the continental drt sel up ty madern mesa Industias? |hwoul tho feoxtond 9 ro} af harks to Tory Simin, Babar Vandetinden fer her SoU comments and w Tam Keene or IScaeTu Yeading 0 Na eseay. Fit published i Acseafan end jew Zeal lume) of Art 4/5 (20020041 1-42