Pierre Huyghe, Afrer ALífe Ahead,

2017, concrete ice-rink floor, sand,

claY, phreat¡c water, bacteria,
algâe, bees, chimera peacocks,
aquarium, black switchable glass'
textile cone, incubator, human
cancer cells, genetic algor¡thm,
augmented{eality program,
automated ceiling structure, rain,
ammoniac, log¡c game. lnstallation
view. From Skulptur Projekte
Nlünster. Photo: ola R¡ndal.

THE GRAND TOUR

ROGK PAPER
sGlssoRs
BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH ON SOME MEANS AND ENDS OF
I I SCULPTURE AT VENICE, MÜNSTER, AND DOCUMENTA

E I

ALL SCULPTURE in the present seems to have acquired the condition of the book,
to paraphrase llalter Pater: the status of total obsolescence, bordering on disap-
pearance. Yet the features that both sculpture and the book once shared have now,
ãn their loss, become all the more prominent: Made with mâterial supports derived
from natural resources (paper, wood, stone, metal), they communicated in very
specific languages to specific audiences in national, if not regional, idioms-
aspiring to occupy prominent places in whât was once called the public sphere. To
exacerbate the chasm that separates the present from that recent past, we could
cite the most cogent definition of sculpture from the 1970s one more time: "The
logic of sculpture, it would seem, is inseparable from the logic of the monument.
By virtue of this logic, a sculpture is a commemorative representation. It sits in å
particular place and speaks in a symbolical tongue about the meaning or use of
that place."1
Since the L960s, two sets of artistic strategies have programmatically decon-
structed this seemingly guaranteed objecthood of sculpture. Combining the various
legacies of John Cage and Fluxus, and mediated by those of Anna Halprin and
Mlerce Cunningham, the first straìn dispiaced sculptural objects by substituting

SEPTEMBER 2OA7 279


I
l
,.,,k
I
I
t
& and its spectators.
thern with actual performing bodies (from Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer to
Judson Church, from Robert Morris and Bruce Nauman to Dan Graham). The
seconcl-ancl in many ways complementary-set of strategies operatecl on the level
of linguistic, discursive, ancl architectural interventions, culminating in the critical
deconstructive work of Michael Asher, Hans Haacke, and Lawrence Weiner. All
these artists claimed that such performative actions coulcl initiate imrnediate com-
municative relations between their practices and their spectators, and that they
worrlcl thereby reahze sculpture's ambition to generate conditions of simultaneous
collective pei:ception. This prospect see med to justify an erasure of a1l the material,
procedural, anci perceptual distinctrons-between subjects, objects, materials, and
architectural and social spaces-that had clefined scuipture until the mid-1960s.
Yet these prâctices also hacl to confront a number of newly emerging contradic-
tions-facing, âs they did, both the extreme conseqLrences of post-Duchampian
de-skilling ancl various vetsions of a documentary factographic aesthetic. In works
ranging from, sa¡ Haacke's Visitors' Profiles to Martha Rosler's Monttmental
Garage Sale,botlt begun in the early 1"970s, spectators/readers might have won-
clerecl why they r,vere still encountering the persistence of artistic prodnction, after'
they hacl presumably acqr.rirecl communicative immecliac¡ shared perception, ancl
aLltonomy frorn artistic conventions ancl skills, myths and mastei'y. More cruciall¡
perhaps, spectators could have rightfully queried why these interventions-even
at their most critical-at best reflectecl only on the mere remnants of public space
and residual collective experience, instead of expancling their horizons to aclclress
the primacy of the new technological and ideological n-rediations that were actually
controlling public social space at the time (as suggestecl by the work of Dara
Birnbaum, herself a former Halplin disciple).
By the 1990s, a numbel of scrilptural ancl performative interventions had
emerged that claimed to correspond to the expanclecl competencies-both disctrrsive
280 ARTFORUi\4
-T
'I
'1
Imhof's glass palace literally bared
the latent sadism of both its design
and linguistic-of their audiences (by artists ranging from Thomas Hirschho¡n ancl
Anclrea Fraser to Tino Sehgal). Inevitabl¡ though, these artists had to face (or
avoid) the central question of how their sculptural, spatial, and performative struc-
tures might actually reflect on their own mediations of power witliin the fr:agments
of a formerly public space. Put clifferently, they had to ask whether and how their
radically reductivist and deconstructivist works could parry the transfolmative
impact of the process of reception itself-the very moment when their works' own
raclicality became style, when subversive deconstruction became design, r,vhen
critical performative gestlrre became mere theatrical stnnt. At this threshold, one
of the primary challenges rvas to reflect on precisely the degree to which these art-
ists were now (in)voluntarily providing the compensatory supply side for the fash-
ion system, the despotism of design, and the various apparatuses of domination
by spectacle at large. (Recall, for example, the recent design of an opulent mass-
ornamental fashion prescntation for Marc Jacobs/Louìs Vuitton by Daniel BuLen,
once the most articulate theoretician ancl practitioner of institutional critique.)
Some, like Hirschhorn, er-rgagecl alternate audiences and spaces outside the privi-
legecl spherc of art, aspiring to achieve poljrically rransfolnrative modes of partici-
pation; others, like Sehgal, activated perfolmers rhemseives, while factographically
registering the bloaclel conclitions of speech ancl reception in the world at lârge.
AT FIRST GLANCE, Anne Imliof's project for this year's Venice Biennale-the alchi- '
tectural clesign of the German pavilion and performance therein, titled Føust-
seems to have emergecl from a reflection on these legacies. But after some
contemplation, certain {eatures of Imhof's work alerted us to the particular clelays
and deformations, ancl major ge opolitical clifferences, rhat have affectecl the
European reception of post-Cagean performative strategies of tl.re past fifty years.
And one became e\¡en mor.e aware of the degree to rvhich the critical analysis of
 This page and opposite: Anne
lmhoÍ, Faust, 2OL7. Performance
views, German Pavilìon' Ven¡ce.
From the 57th Venice Biennale.
fh¡s page, r¡ght, and oppos¡te: EIiza
Douglas. Photos, right and opposite:
Nadine Fraczkowski. Photo, th¡s
page, Ieft: Francesco Galli.

Imhof's glass palace literally bared

thelatent sadism of bothits design
and its spectators.

advanced forms of spectacularized consumption that now rule everyday collective actually enforce total secrecy and control. Yet by shifting from the verticality of
Rainer to and linguistic-of their audiences (by artists ranging from Thomas Hirschhorn and
perception differs berween these generations. Until recenti¡ it still seemed totally the corporate facade to the horizontality of the pavilion's floor, the work only
Lam). The Andrea Fraser to Tino Sehgal). Inevitabl¡ though, these artists had to face (or
unthinkable for radical artists, from Asher to Fraser to Sehgal, to attempt to unify perversely increased the disciplinary powers of glass. Imhof's decision to position
n the level avoid) the central question of how their sculptural, spatial, and performative struc-
the spheres of art with the languages of corporate architecture, the fashion system, spectators as involuntary performers, treading on this horizontal expanse of sculp-
he critical tures might actually reflect on their own mediations of power within the fragments
and industrial music production-yet all these fusions are obviously integral to tural/architectural space, inevitably called for a comparison with other physical
Zeiner. All of a formerly public space. Put differently, they had to ask whether and how their
Imhof's project. and discursive deconstructions of sculpture's traditional volume and verticality
liate com- radically reductivist and deconstructivist works could parry the transformative
The pavilion design appeared to have taken its primary inspiration not only and its inversions into a iiteral plane: from Carl Andre's claim, still credible in the
that they impact of the process of reception itself-the very moment when their works' own
from the display architectures of Germany's bank buildings but also from the 1960s, to have reversed the phallic order of sculpture into a platform for walking,
ultaneous radicality became style, when subversive deconstruction became design, when
gigantic shrine-like showro.oms for the country's supreme fetish-the car-that to Vito Acconci's transformation of the gallery floor into both a roof over his
:material, critical performative gesture became mere theatrical stunt. At this threshold, one
:rials, and of the primary challenges was to reflect on precisely the degree to which these art- surprise one on Frankfurt or Berlin's most elegant avenues (manifesting the masturbation chamber and a platform under the audience in his sensational 1972
extreme hierarchy of renewed social Darwinism mediated by collective consump- Seedbed, to Haacke's startling destruction of the entire marble floor, originally
d-1960s. ists were now (in)voluntarily providing the compensatory supply side for the fash-
tion, as in Mercedes-Benz's current slogan: "The best or nothing"). And Imhof instalied by HitleE of the German pavilion in Venice in 1.993, to name but a few,
:ontradic- ion system, the despotism of design, and the various apparatuses of domination
mobilized the apparently inexhaustible resources of that "cì.rlture," metallic and In extreme contrast, Imhof's Panzerglas palace literally bared the latent sadism
:hampian by spectacie at large. (Recail, for example, the recent design of an opuient mass-
ornamental fashion presentation for Marc Jacobs/Louis Vuitton by Daniel Buren, vitreous, for a mimetic architecture p arlante (displaying utter indifference toward of both its design and its spectators, who suddenly found themselves-as in a ter-
. In works
once the most articulate theorerician and practitioner of institutional critique.) its production of massive industrial waste at a time of increasingly universal pre- rarium-positioned above the performers, now subjected underfoot, beiow the glass
numental
Some, like Hirschhorn, engaged alternate audiences and spaces outside the privi- carity) that culminated in a vast floor construction made of safety glass, akin to floor, lounging, wiggling in gestures of erotic enticement, masturbatory come-ons,
tave won-
leged sphere of art, aspiring ro achieve politically rransformative modes of partici- what Germans call Panzerglas:large plates of armored glass that protect banks spent boredom, or huddling around various small fires.3 In subsequent phases of
rion, after
>tion, and pation; others, like Sehgal, âcrivared performers themselves, while factographically from robbery and politicians from assault. As if mocking (if only she had) this the performance, which often continued over several hours,a some members of the
registering the broader conditions ofspeech and reception in the world at large. newly enforced German hierarchical authoritarianism, propelled by the economic underground assembly emerged aboveground, with the evacuated facial expres-
, cruciall¡
drive of its corporations, Imhof installed two large cages flanking either side of the sions of proud zombies on a mission, sitting on elevated brushed-aluminum con-
)ns-even
blic space AT FlRsï GLANGE, Anne Imhof's project for this year's venice Biennale-the archi- pavilion's main entrance, featuring a posse of Doberman attack dogs aggressively soles like Apple store personnel run amok or on the pavilion's roof like live I
tectural design of the German pavilion and performance therein, titled Faust- barking at visitors.2 gargoyles, or striding in catwalk formations with militant menace through the
:o address
seems to have emerged from-a reflection on these legacies. But after some It was not immediately clear whether Imhof's cult of glass was trying to enact dense crowds of gawking spectators.
:e actually
contemplation, certain features of Imhof's work alerted us to the particular delays a late variation on Taut and Mies, and their Expressionist aspirations that total A complex historical arc links Forti and Rainer's radicaltask-based perfor-
< of Dara
and deformations, and major geopolitical differences, thar have affected the transparency would shift social relations from privacy to collective accessibility. mances, which voided choreographic mastery to endow common subjects with

dons had European reception of post-Cagean performative strategies of the past fifty years. Or whether she was wholeheartedly embracing corporate architecture's fascistic, bodily and mental âgency, to Sehgal's extreme evacuations of bodily or theatrical
discursive And one became even more ãf th. degree to which the critical anaiysis of massive glass deployments, which pretend to offer universal transparency but performance, which distill his practice nearly to an aesthetic of "bare life." Yet the
"*"r.
SEPTEI\4BER 2077 2AL

extremes of Sehgal's ârtistic self-denial ultimately activate his spectators all the
more, enabling them to acquire public agency and enact competencies of percep-
tual and communicative exchange. But what artistic mentality in the present would
feel compelled to yield even these last forms of physioiogical, perceptual, and
phenomenological self-determination to the totally regulated spaces and bodily
imperatives of corporate control? Only the authentic banality of a fashion designer
would want to recasr these slightest behavioral fractures within the totalitarian
forms of control ancl consumptiorl, to turn even the most microscopic differences
into yet another parasitical ready-made procluct, ancl to recoup-at the price of
total spectacularization-the infìnitesimal breaches that actual artistic practices
open up, however slightl¡ within the firmament of control.
Imhof ancl her partner, Eliza Douglas (who appears as the star performer both
in the installation and in endless promotional photographs that might as well fill
a minor musician's three-volume box set or the sample book of a modeling agency),
have clecicled to invade these raclically subversive and critical voids with the hyper'
trophic logic of collective narcissistic personality disorders, grafting the fashion
inciustry's evef more voracious and desperate forms of compulsive self-affirmation
onto the increasing despair of current artistic production (or vice versa).r
Imhof's collaborators and performers are presented as proudly serving volun-
teers, which explains the disturbing sense of being confronted once again-iike
fol-
Joseph Beuys's congregations of yore-with a German ârtist's youth cult of
1ü/agner before him), and as we see even more
lowers. As we know from Beuys (and
clearly with Imhof, the inherently submissive and compensatory dimensions of art
as cult-utterly opposed, of course, by post-Cagean traditions of performativity-
inevitably fail at any specific critical analysis of class, political economy' or the
'Worse yet, cultic structures
actual conditions of audiences' everyday experience.
will always guarantee extremely limited forms of communication, arresting an
2A2 ARTFORUM
Bradford triggers a cathartic
confrontation: between bodily
gestures of disobedience and the
deep imprint of mass-cultural
control left on all its subjects.
artwork within the very circuits of power and adulation on which its histrionic,
simnlated deviancy depends. Even the utterly prepostef ous title Faust (would that
it were parody rather than pretense), associating this cabaret with the foundational
text of a specifically German literary history and identity (ranging from the medi-
eval puppet play to Goethe's Faust and Mann's Doctor Faustus), had prefigura-
tions in Beuys's claims to position himself within a iineage of classical literature, as
for example in his 1969 performance fusing Goethe's Iphigenia and Shakespeare's
Titus Andronicus. Once again, it is this particular German lineage, from'lüagner
via Beuys to Imhof, that denies the fact that being contemporary means being
committed to the utter privation, if not depravit¡ of one's classical cultural foun-
clations, and that no pretended or imaginary bond can compensate for the poverty
of cultural practices in the present.
Such phantasmagoric "communities of the future"-now forged by the fusion
of club and catwalk (a sanitized version of Berlin's notorious Berghain)-stage
these youth cuits, attirecl in the latest melancholic fashion, as a narcissistic delusion
of social redemption, of having escapeci one more time, if only by a hair, from the
vulgarity of daily life. (Adorno's prognosis "Fun is a bath in steeI" lFun ist ein
Stablbadl comes to mind. ) By conrrast, if one hoped that even the slightest effects
of enlightenment, of resistance against the ruling proto-totalitarian powers, could
still be induced by any scr.rlptural intervention within the residual forms of public
space, it would be precisely the result of fragmentation, not fusion: those decisive l
artistic capacities that fracture the relations between individual and collectìve even
further, that begin to differentiate subject and object into utterly irreconcilable
oppositions, that polarize experience and representation-operÌing increasingly
unbridgeable chasms between Ìinguistic, sculptural, and architectural operations
and the existing sociopolitical and ideological totalities within which these forms
of artistic procluction can barely occur..
 I

Bradford triggers a cathartic

confrontation: between bodily
gestures of disobedience and the
Opposite page, left: Anne lmhof, opposite page, r¡ght: Mark Above: Mark Bradfotd,Spoiled Foot, Right: Vlew of "Mark Bradford:

deep imprint of mass-cultural Faust,2OL7 . Performance view,
German pavilion, Venice. From the
57th Venice Biennale. Stine omar,
control left on all its subjects. Eliza Douglas, Emma Daniel.
Photo: Nadine Fraczkowski.
Aradt oñ, Bafi e n, 20L7, g'av el.
¡nstallation view, US pavil¡on,
Venice. From the 57th Venice
Biennale. Photo: Joshua White.
2016, mixed media on canvas,
wood, luan sheeting, dri vall.
lnstallation v¡ew, US pav¡lion,
Venice. From the 57th Venice
Biennale. Photo: Joshua While.
Tomorrolrr ls Anothet Day,' 20L7,
US pavilion, Ven¡ce. Foreground:
Medusa, 2016. Wall: Ra¡dne,
2017. From the 57th Venice
Biennale. Photo: Joshua White.

ors all the artwork within the very circuits of power and adulation on which its histrionic, NOTHING COULD HAVE BEEN further from the pomposity of the German pavilion's This challenge extended to Bradford's series of paintings for the pavilion, which
of percep- simulated deviancy depends. Even the utterly preposterous titleFøwst (would that fusion of cult and corporate design than Mark Bradford's project for the American shared the room wíth Medusa (significantl¡ all had titles from Greek mytholog¡
ient would it were parody rather than pretense), associating this cabaret with the foundational pavilion, Tomorrow Is Another Day. In stark contrast to Imhof's foreboding glass as though the darkest dimensions of myth had indeed returned to haunt us). One
ctual, and text of a specifically German literary history and identity (ranging from the medi- palace and dog cages, Bradford's accumulation of detritus at the dilapidated of their primary material resources was the particular type of "endpapers" that
rnd bodily eval puppet play to Goethe's Faust and Mann's Doctor Faustus), had prefigura- entrance of his installation appeared accidental, an authentic record of the condi- the artist formerly used by the hundreds, if not the thousands, to process female
,n designer tions in Beuys's claims to position himself within a lineage of classical literature, as tions of American urban public space, where sheer neglect both defines and afflicts customers' hair at. his mother's salon in LA. Literally redeemed from their bodily
rtalitarian for example inhis 1969 performance fusing Goethe's lpbigenia and Shakespeare's its inhabitants; as subjects of consumption and as objects of abandonment.6 and utilitarian services, they appeared elevated to new pictorial heights as serially
lifferences Titus Andronicus. Once agaín,it is this particular German lineage, from'Wagner Inside, alarge sculptural structure, Spoiled Foot,201.6, rccorded an infinity of collaged and painted grisaille units. In a sublime mimicry of late-modernist
ae price of via Beuys to Imhof, that denies the fact that being contemporary means being trâumatic impressions. Ominously suspended like a collapsed ceiling into the view- abstraction, they also seemed to pay tribute to one of Bradford's female idols, the
J practices committed to the utter privation, if not depravit¡ of one's classical cuitural foun- ing space, the work obstructed viewers' passage into the domed area of the great Agnes Martin, whose meditative abstractions emerged in manifest opposition
dations, and that no pretended or imaginary bond can compensate for the poverty Pailadian pavilion. But in lieu of the cupola's promise of a celestial ascent, Bradford to the masculinist reign of Abstract Expressionist painters in the late 1950s. But
of cultural practices in the present. inverted its spatial orientation and instilled the vertigo of a spiraling abyss, imme- more important, in an inversion of this process of abstraction as sublimation,
'rmer both
as well fill Such phantasmagoric "communities of the future"-16¡y forged by the fusion diately followed-as in a one-two punch-by a monstrous structure, appropriately Bradford's paintings also desublimate abstraction, endowing it with an exemplar¡
rg agency), of club and catwalk (a sanitized version of Berlin's nororious Berghain)-stage titled Medusa,20L6. Made from the unlikely sculptural materials of black paper, public, mnemonic record of labor-that of Bradford's mother and that of the artist
the hyper- these youth cults, attired in the latest melancholic fashion, as a narcissistic delusion rope, and caulk, and seeming to have beenhaphazardly dragged through bleach, himself. A second type of paper comprises an equally essential resource for
he fashion of social redemption, of having escaped one more time, if only by ahair,from the the work resuscitated and reformulated one of the most striking paradigms of Bradford's practice: bulks and bundles of found or vandalized posters the artist
Lffirmation vulgarity of daily life. (Adorno's prognosis "Fun is a bath in steel" fFun ist ein post-Minimai sculpture: Eva Hesse's short-circuiting of somatic and social trauma. collects with his assistants from the streets of his South LA neighborhood. Featured
r).5 Stahlbødl comes to mind.) By contrast, if one hoped that even the slightest effects Bradford cited Hesse's unheard-of sculptural materials and morphologies, trans- in Spoiled Fooil, for example, such detritus was also echoed in slightly earlier paint-
ing volun- of enlightenment, of resisrance against the ruling proto-totalitarian powers, could posing all elements dead center into a reflection of the horrors of present-day ings (includingTomoruow Is Anotber Day, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and
gain-like still be induced by any sculptural inrervention within the residual forms of public racism and gender violence. 1"A5ß4, aL|201"6), which take as their support industrially produced, standard-
:ult of foi- space, it would be precisely the result of fragmentation, not fusion: those decisive One of the greatest critical challenges in responding to the seduction of ized, monochromatic sheets of paper called "blanks," typically used for posterd.
even mofe artistic capacities that fracture the relations befween individual and collective even Bradford's pavilion was, inÍact, to resist the temptation to essentialize-partly the But Bradford has also referred to the use of blanks in Europe, where they were often
;ions of art further, that begin to differentiate subject and object into utterly irreconciiable resuit of Bradford's own incessant foregrounding of the psychosocial and sexual used to couer up political posters or unwanted signs on the street. Once liqueûed
mativitY- oppositions, that polarize experience and represenration-opening increasingly terms of his work (working-class, black' ga¡ LA). After all, we would not want and modeled into bulbous layers of pulp on the surfaces of the paintings, they are
m¡ or the unbridgeable chasms between linguistic, sculptural, and architectural operations to engage in a solely biographic interpretation, nor in the discursive construction sanded down, built up, then sanded again to generate an uncannily somatic texture,
structures and the existing sociopolitical and ideological totalities within which these forms of a new outsider exceptionalism, and least of all in a new urban primitivism that a kind of urban derma disseminated across these large paintings as though the
'resting an of artistic production can barely occur. draws on the retransmission of obsolete painterly and sculptural practices.T artist were charting a vague memory of Debord's psychogeographic maps.

SEPTEIV]BER 2OT7 2A3

Above: Mark Bradf otd, Íomorrow
ls Another Day,2016, mixed media
on canvas, IQ', 4" xt7't!".
US pavilion, Venice. From the
57th Ven¡ce B¡ennale.
R¡ght: Mark Bradfotd, N¡aÉara,
2005, video, color, s¡lent,
3 minutes 17 seconds. lnstallation
view, US pavilion, Venice,2OtT
From the 57th Venice Biennâle.
Photo: Joshuâ White.
Opposite page: Pierre Huyghe,
After ALife Ahead,2017, concrete
ice{inkfloor, sand, clay, phreatic
water, bacteria, algae, bees,
chimerâ peacocks, aquarjum,
black sw¡tchable glass, text¡le cone,
incubator, human cancer cells,
genetic algor¡thm, augmented-
reality program, automated ceil¡ng
structure, rain, ammoniac, log¡c
game. ¡nstallation view. From
Skulptur Projekte Münster. Photo:
Ola R¡ndal.

These cartographic works appeal through their initially bewildering resuscita-
tion of a long-overiooked, if not totally disavowed, neo-avant-garde procedure-
the décollages of Jacques Villeglé and Raymond Hains.s At a moment of extreme
global dislocation and universal homogeneit¡ if not outright identit¡ of archi-
tectures and publics, the very recollection of a moment when artists could con-
vincingly claim to resist the emerging mass-cultural powers-in aggressive
gestures of defacement and protest against the growing dismemberment of public
space-must now appear as a mnemonic mecca. Bradford's works provide a map
of that memory from the heart of LA, the globalized and decentered city par
excellence, an irresistible charting ofthe past. But the extraordinary and seductive
materiality of these works also seems to acldress the fact that paper, like painting
itself, is of course the very material that is rapidly withering away from all
advanced forms of communication in our dark digital age. Be it Bradford's large
suspended ceiling, the reversed abyss of the cupola, the papered and tarred
tangles of his fusion of Laocoön and Medusa, or the urban pauper's posters, all
generate a peculiar fascination with fragility from which one cannot easily with-
draw. 'S7e thus encounter, perhaps for the first time, not just a fetishization of
objects and materials but the collective fetishization of an entire support system
of communicative production.
The last, and possibly most compelling, element in Bradford's pavilion was his
video projectionNiagara,2005, which shows, from behind, a young black man
in bright yellow shorts ambling down a nondescript, dilapidated LA street in
title's uncann¡ deepiy discomfiting phonetic reverberations, Bradford triggers a
cathartic confrontation: between his protagonist's bodily gestures of disobedience
and the deep imprint of mass-cuitural control left on all its subjects. It is precisely
this glimpse of a collectively available possibility of resistance that Braclford's
anonymous and unskilled performer allows (in stark contrast, again, to Imhof's
chosen crew), and that transfers and intensifies the egalitarian radicality of Judson
Church into an oppositional âctivism in the present.
Bradford's sculptural and pictorial production has, in fact, long been paralleled
by social activism. In Venice, the artist presented one such project alongside the
pavilion: his engagement with the prison merchant collective Rio Terà dei Pensieri,
a cooperative for men and women in the Venetian prison system that provides
basic forms of work training and teaches methods of economic self-sustainment
in an effort to prepare inmates for eventual resocialization, and which Bradford
will continue to support for six years. This expansion of the parameters of sculp-
ture and social activism brings us back to some of the questions we had asked
initially-namel¡ to what extent the practice of sculpture must fracture its former
morphological and material homogeneity into discontinuous activities, in order
to credibly claim that sculpture can still initiate some form of social agency.e
PERHAPS THE MOST HAUNTING and complex challenge to claims that sculpture
could reconstitute emancipated models of experience in the public sphere was
Pierre Huygh e's After ALife Ahead, 201,7, the artist's contribution to Kasper ;

ostentatious nonchalance, either in an unconscious innervation of Marilyn
Monroe's walk in the famous scene of the work's namesake 1953 film or in a
brazen mockery of the scene's camp status among (black) gay men. But Niagara
was also, of course, the name of the group of antisegregationists, including
\7. E. B. Du Bois, who gathered on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in 1905 to
discuss the future politics of African American emancipation. Complementing the
König's Skuiptur Projekte Münster. This decennial, now in its fifth and probably
final iteration, was staged in the protected zones of a middle-class town that can
still sustain the myths of a potential abolition of social and spatial divisions in
public space. Rather than building a new glass palace, Huyghe excavated a defunct
entertainment venue, the town's former ice-skating and hockey rink. Abandoned
due to its relatively modest size and ìts lack of media technologies, rhe arena was

284 ARIFORUI\¡
 Pierre Huyghe's dystopian displays
of social, biological, aîdphysical
;he,
oncfete systems appear as the technologically
lreatic
?s, mediated stages on which the
m,
:ile cone,
:ells,
relapse of enlightenment into myth
Ited-
Iceiling
and ecological catastrophe canbe
logic
om dr amatically performed.
Photo:

rsclta- title's uncann¡ deeply discomfiting phonetic reverberations, Bradford triggers a available for the artist to transform into the site of a fundamentally dystopian, if matically performed. It is precisely this acknowiedgment-that sculptural claims
lure- cathartic confrontation: between his protagonist's bodily gestures of disobedience not apocalyptic, archaeology. for a space of critical rationality outside the totalization of spectacle can no longer
ítreme and the deep imprint of mass-cultural control left on all its subjects. It is precisely After ALife Ah eød programmatically synthesizes seemingly incompatible be sustained-that defines Huyghe's epistemolog¡ once again departing from his
archi- this glimpse of a collectively available possibility of resistance that Bradford's strands of sculptural histories: Land art, in particular the work of Robert rationalist Marxist predecessors of the 1960s. Thus he states:
d con- anonymous and unskilled performer allows (in stark contrâst, again, to Imhof's Smithson; Haacke's systems-theory sculptures, developed in dialogue with Jack .lüe
must dispei one received idea and that is that the spectacle is a fatalism, inherently
essive chosen crew), and that ransfers and intensifies the egalitarian radicality of Judson Burnham; the mid- to late-'60s institutional critique of Buren.10 Yet, commenting
alienating. The spectacle is a format, it is a way to do things. . . . The point is not as
public Church into an oppositional activism in the present. on his relation to Smithson, Huyghe hâs stated, "My interest wâs not in creating
an artist to occupy the position of simply rejecting the spectacle or entertainment as
a map Bradford's sculptural and pictorial production has, in fact, long been paralleled an object that escapes the exhibition frame only to merge with the landscape in its bad; this is a form of escapism. Nor is the point just to incorporate spectacle, and
ty par by social activism. In Venice, the artist presented one such project alongside the scale, but to do this r.nore in a temporal sense. It would no longer be something in occupy the position of an artist saying, "I will also just be an entertainer. " The point
.uctive pavilion: his engagement with the prison merchant collective Rio Terà dei Pensieri, the middie of nowhere, no longer subject to this fascination of the Earth artists is to take spectacle as a format, and to use it if the need presents itself.12
Linting a cooperative for men and women in the Venetian prison system that provides with the empty desert. My work would be precisely in-betueenthe city and nature,
rm all basic forms of work training and teaches methods of economic self-sustainment in-between this place of meetings, signs, and corporations, which is the cit¡ and Huyghe's variations on Land art strategies, and his deconstruction of sculpture's
s large in an effort to prepare inmates for eventual resocialization, and which Bradford nature."11 Thus it is not only historical distance that distinguishes Huyghe from universal base, the earth, never merely specta cularize their intervention in hereto-
tarred will continue to support for six years. This expansion of the parameters of sculp- the practices of the 1960s, but his reconfiguration ofthese earlier strategies into fore unimagined sites and scales. Indeed, even the ârtist's destructive incisions into
:rs, ali rure and sociai activism brings us back to some of the questions we had asked the diaiectical counternarratives needed in the present, at the moment of sculp- the surfaces of the Münster ice rink and its grounds nevertheless followed the
'with- initially-namel¡ to what extent the practice of scuipture must fracture its former ture's inevitable submission to technologically mediated spectacle. rationalist principles of a mathem atical puzzle suggested by Archimedes, the
ion of morphological and material homogeneity into discontinuous activities, in order If Huyghe recognized that Smithson and Land art aimed to reposition artistic Stomachion, according to which a spatiai form is fragmented and then reconsti-
iystem to credibly claim that sculpture can still initiate some form of social agency.e practices outside the parameters of discursive and institutional control-i.e., in tuted in varyingpermutations, as in a tangram. Digging deeply underneath cuts
total disregard of the museum and gallery-by situating the work in the no-man's- into the rink's floor while leaving other segments of the surface intact, the sculpted
vas his PERHAPS THE MOST HAUNTING and complex challenge to claims that sculpture lands of abandoned industrial sites, he has now powerfully foregrounded the space revealed layers of groundwater, sand, and cla¡ some of them even traceâbie
k man could reconstitute emancipated models of experience in the public sphere was inevitable, simultaneous coexistence of these spâtially, materìai1¡ and temporally to the geologic deposits of the last prehistoric movements of glaciers in this
reet in Pierre Huyghe's After ALife Ahead, Z0I7, the arrisr's contribution to Kasper heterogeneous conclitions within the institutional parameters of the exhìbition I7estphalian region. Several mounds of earth and clay were subsequently formed
arilyn König's skulptur Projekte Münster. This decennial, now in its fifth and probably itself. The same applies to Huyghe's citations of Haacke's approach: \While for into towerlike strttctures to house two populations of bees, which also contain
rrina final iteration, was staged in the protected zones of a middle-ciass town that can Haacke sysrems theory could still marshal a critical and rationalist Enlightenment sensors recording the movements and activities of the bee population itself. As in
tagata still sustain the myths of a potential abolition of social and spatial divisions in culture in order to displace transhistorical artistic myths by positivist luth value, a common surveillance system, information is collected about the biosphere's
uding public space. Rather than building a new glass palace,Huyghe excavared a defunct Huyghe's dystopian displays of interconnected social, biological, and physical interlocking living and material elements; the sensors are connected by buried
905 to entertainment venue, the town's forme¡ ice-skating and hockey rink. Abandoned systems appear as the technologically mediated stages on which the imminent cables to a cancer-cell incubator, an obdurate form that appeared like an uncanny
ing the due to its relatively modest size and its lack of media technologies, rhe arena was relapse of enlightenment into myth and ecological catastfophe can be most dra- refrigeration unit resting on the banks of the massive pit. The data is processed

SEPTEMBER 2077 2A5


using a set of algorithms that can accelerate or slow the muitiplication of the can-
cer cells. These, in turn, trigger an app that spectators can download, clisplaying
on one's phone screen mysterious geometric forms that move in resþonse to the
activity of the cancer cells. Another natural pattern likewise determines the opening
of massive apertures in the roof, mechanized geometric panels that automatically
open and close without any apparent logic. In this wa¡ an entire universe of the
microscopic and macroscopic, mechanical and organic, real and virtual, shifts
according to the frequencies of bodily movements and vital signs emerging from
the setting atlarge, as if to compel spectators' insight into the utter interdepen-
dence and continuous exchange between the no¡ma1 and the pathological forms
of contemporary everyday 1ife.
These vast biological systems, and the startling presence of live animals (not
only bees but chimera peacocks, fish, algae), continue Huyghe's interrogation of
traditional conceptions of sculpture via such flora ancl fauna, most notoriously
used in his project Untilled,20|l-1,2,for Documenta 13 in 201,2,whích featured
the enchanting presence of two Podenco lbicenco dogs and a beehive. Ancl unlike
the long list of postwar artists who have used live animals in their work-some of
whom, like Haacke, deployed these strategies as scientistic investigations of bio-
logical systems, while others, like Kounellis, returned to a melancholic desire for
a reconciliation of nature and culture-Huyghe deploys his strange animal hus-
bandry to "deregulate" the relations between subjects, spaces, and systems, not
only recording the violence with which the subject's mnemonic capacities have
been destroyed by spectacle but charting how the melancholic gaze itself now
returns that violence by converting its representations into a flrture altogether
bereft of sub¡ective agency.r3
Commentrng on his decision to incorporate live creatures in the new wc-rrk,
Huyghe gave an explanation that was as plausible as it was laprdary: "Animals
286 ARTFORUM
ï
t
¡
I
ì
Left: Hito Steyerl, Hett Yeah We ¡
¡
Fuck Ðie,2OL6, mixed media,
mult¡-channel video. lnstallation
view, Westdeutsche Landesllaus-
Parkasse, Münster, 2017. From
Skulptur Projekte l\,li¡nster.
R¡ght: H¡to Steyert, Robots
Today,20!6, HD video, color,
sound, 8 m¡nutes 35 seconds.
Westdeutsche Landestrauspar-
kasse, N4ünster. From Skulptur
Projekte lvlünster, 2017.
Opposite page: Hito Steyer¡,
Prototype 7.0 and !.7,2077,
foam, aluminum. lnstallation view,
Westdeutsche Landesbâuspar-
kasse, Münster, 2O\7. From
Skulptur Projekte l\4ünster.
are determined both by reproduction, a necessit¡ and by aleatory forms of unpre-
dictable behavior; that interests me indeed."la A diffrcult question emerges, how-
ever, in response to Huyghet laconic answer: To what extent might his substitution
of animals for human performers be read as an increasingly skeptical reflection on
the legacies of Cage? After all, posing animals as "aleatory forms of unpredictable
behavior" would seem a dark twist indeed on Cage's utopian vision of the ale atory
as a means of liberation from the rationalization of the human subject; and an
equally dark reflection on the human actors in the performative sculptures and
"situations" of Sehgal, Hirschhorn, and even Philippe Parreno, who has similarly
used microorganisms to trigger complex systems of effects.
If Huyghe is indeed critiquing Cage's politics of desubjectivization, he also
seems to be resuscitating a complex, lesser-known philosophical genealogy of
proto-structuralist thought. Formulated in the first decade of the twentieth century,
this strain complemented an emerging semiolog¡ derived from structural linguis-
tics and formalist literary theor¡ with a theory of signification derived from the
natural sciences. Three figures (with aimost identicai life spans) drew on the obser-
vations and typologies of modern biolog¡ in particular, to contribute key works
in this history: the late Symbolist poet and dramatist Maurice Maeterlinck (1,862-
1.949),who authored the cult booksThe Life of the Bee (1.901.) andThe Intelligence
of Flowers (1907), D'Arcy's7entworth Thompson (L860_1.948[ who wrore the
t917 On Growth and Form (which had served as a crucial reference for earlier
artistic attempts to synthesize the legacies of Duchamp with a scientifically based
structuralist model, becoming the central reference for Richard Hamilton and the
Independent Group in the 1950s; in his Münster work, Huyghe cites Thompson
almost verbatim when he uses the structural design of a seashell to serve as the basis
for a musical scure ro be amplified throughout the work), and Jakob von Uexkrill
(1864-1944), whose bio-semiolog¡ formulated jnhis Tbeoretical Biology oÍ
 Left: Hito steyel, HeltYeah We
Fuck Ðie,2Oa6, m¡xed media,
mult¡-channel video. lnstallation
view, Westdeutsche Landesbaus-
Parkasse, Münster, 2017- From
.t
Skulptur Projekte Münster,

Right: H¡to Steyerl, Robots

Today,2OL6, HD v¡deo, color,
sound, S minutes 35 seconds.
Westdeutsche Landesbauspar-
kasse, l\4ünster. From Skulptur
Projekte Münster, 2017.

Opposite page: H¡to Steyerl,

Prototype 7.0 and 7.7,20!7,
foam, aluminum. lnstallation v¡ew,
fi lÌ*:Ìri.

Westdeutsche Landesbauspar-
kasse, Münster, 2Ot7 . From
Skulptur Projekte Münster.

Sculpture has, ever since the 1960s, facedthe question

of whether its public presentation and distribution would
be the book or the brick.

he can- are determined both by reproduction, a necessity, and by aleatory forms of unpre-
playing dictable behavior; that interests me indeed."la A difficult question emerges, how-
e to the ever, in response to Huyghe's laconic answer: To what extent might his substitution
rpening of animals for human performers be read as an increasingly skeptical reflection on
atically the legacies of Cage? After all, posing animals as "aleatory forms of unpredictable
e of the behavior" wouid seem a dark twist indeed on Cage's utopian vision of the aleatory
l, shifts as a means of liberation from the rationalization of the human subject; and an
rg from equally dark reflection on the human actors in the performative sculptures and
:depen- "situations" of Sehgal, Hirschhorn, and even Philippe Parreno, who has similarly
I forms used microorganisms to trigger complex systems of effects.
If Huyghe is indeed critiquing Cage's politics of desubjectivization, he also
als (not seems to be resuscitating a complex, lesser-known philosophical genealogy of
rtion of proto-structuralist thought. Formulated in the first decade of the twentieth centurf
rriously this strain complemented an emerging semiolog¡ derived from structural linguis-
eatured tics and formalist literary theor¡ with a theory of signification derived from the
I unlike natural sciences. Three figures (with almost identical life spans) drew on the obser-
some of vations and typologies of modern bioiog¡ in particular, ro contribure key works
; of bio- in this history: the late Symbolist poet and dramatist Maurice Maererlinck (1862*
:sire for 1'949l,who authored the cult books Tåe Life of theBee (1901) and The Intelligence
ral hus- of Flowers (1"907), D'Arcy'Wentworth Thompson (1,860-1,948), who wrote rhe
ms, not 1"917 on Grotuth and Form (which had served as a crucial reference for earlier
es have artistic attempts to synthesize the legacies of Duchamp with a scientifically based
elf now st{ucturalist model, becoming the central reference for Richard Hamilton and the
ogether Independent Group in the 1950s; in his Münster work, Huyghe cites Thompson
almost verbatim when he uses the sffuctural design of a seashell to serve as the basis
v work, for a musical score to be amplified throughout the work), and Jakob von Uexküll
\nimals (1864-1944), whose bio-semiolog¡ formulated inbis Theoretical Biology of
1,920,hada tremendous impact on Gilles Deieuze and Giorgio Agamben, two of
the most important contemporary philosophers in Huyghe's intellectual formation.
Huyghe's substitution of animal âctors for human ones opens onto a veritable
Semiology of forms, organisms, and structures that confront this history of nature,
systems, and biopower.
llhile there is no doubt that such materialist structuralist models of signification
formed an important counterpart to the linguistic structuralist semiology at the
center of French theo¡ies of the '60s, their invocation in Huyghe's work leaves us
with the question as to whât agency-if any-a fully overdetermined and controlled
natural environment, as an insurmountable limit of human behavior, might still
permit. Thus the work's strikingly schismatic temporalit¡ even evident in the title
After ALife Ahead, signals the total suspension of human agency: what Huyghe
rightfull¡ yet resignedly, calls the "anthropophagy" of contemporâry conditions.
lF FIGURES OF POLITICAL AGENCY-and any sense of resistant oppositionality or
self-determination-seemed utterly absent from Huyghe's diorama, as though we
had already accepted the Anthropocene's final destruction of rationalist
Enlightenment culture and ecolog¡ figures did in fact stili appear in Hito Steyerl's
Münster installation Hell Yeah We Fuck Die,2016 (the titie featuring the terms
most frequently used in English song titles since 2010, according to Billboard
magazine). One even encountered structures that could still be taken for traditional
sculpture in the first room of Steyerl's installation, appropriately situated in a
rather pompous bank building from the 1970s featuring a coliection of decorations
by Düsseldorf Zero.
But these figures were robots, at least at first sight. The artist presented two
humanoid models-one upright, one splayed on the floor-decomposed into ste-
reometric cubic forms, uncannily cut from foam rubber rather than metal, literal
software androids that could be seen as Minimalist revenants or isotypes for a
neo-Productivist future. After this missed encounter with the recent sculptural
pâst, one entered a second space with sampled, commerciaily produced videos that
documented high-tech robotic figures, performing all the activities that contem-
porâry technology suggests: marching, fighting, falling, and being beaten (one
realized,with slightly bewiidered amusement, that now even robots face a future
of a daily routine of violently disciplinar¡ if not militar¡ aggression). In the long
and extremely contradictory iconography of mechanomorph Êgures in the twen-
tieth-century avant-gardes, from Brancusi to de Chirico, Schlemmer to Bellmer,
either machinic men had triumphantiy announced the collectivization of the indus-
trial workforce or tailor's dummies had melancholically deplored the inevitably
fetishistic features of reified patriarchal bourgeois subjectivity. Steyerl's electroni-
cally enhanced robotic subjects added a whoie new category to this collection of
sculptural tropes, presenting the grotesquely proto-totalitarian figures of a future
of digital desub j ectivation.
Yet in a second video projection, suddenly shifting from near-comedic sampling
to the factographic mode of the documentarian, Steyerl took spectators to the city
of Diyarbakrr in southeastern Turke¡ where, aroun d 120 5 , the Kurdish writer and
thinker Al-lazari invented a range of machines and mechanical toys now known
to us as âutomata. But the memory of this figure and his astonishing drawings had
to literally confront the rubble of histor¡ since Turkish military forces had recently I
bombarded the city in their genocidal aftack on the Kurds, as we learn from the
artist's interviews with local residents, archaeologists, and researchers. Facing the
seemingly impenetrable apparatus of technological and ideological powers in
the present, Steyerl inverts the resulting media pessimism in a Brechtian dialectical
move. She addresses these anonymous powers with a child's voice, querying Siri
(our omniscient oracle): "\øho destroyed this city?"; "'Sfhat role does computer

SEPTEI\4BER 2OI7 2A7

 l
:ú! aùtìùtrú ùrt tì¡ld,
?r ar.Þn sl4¡0 {' !r

84 7 Ãii.^."c . t fu,."e¿L
/'i/o* /t/^,4.
iio
.,'y'l'* {¿í)r
4to,+i"
øW.e¿ ¿,
.îu-þ,4¿þt. i'{i¿*?
Å&."/
L ?r. y,L
t ,íufZ.*ç,¡b
t l:.17
?a1wf+t, ùr\<t ,'"::,rg
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't fw,þþ4. P c.iô"/ae
I l)'øç+ l'ú
û¿i,-
4 ff¿fra.t1wt @¿1'. rþ,,4,t/, rr
Maria Eichhorn's work proves what intervention
a sculptural 4 il.¡.(
./.// t $r,i,,l¿,oé Ml*A
can still enact today, even if we have to assume that ¿0, _
':#:r
traditional forms of communication have been destroyed.

technology play in war?"; and, fina11¡ whether militaristic deployments would
reaily have to be the sole future ofrobot technology or whether robots could also
serve productively and concretely in the removal of land mines, for example.
Thus Steyerl provides evidence of the potential political effect that a sudden
release of precise historical information-sculpture as a technologically mediated
mnemonic jolt-can have on contemporary spectators. Here, the iolt not only
catalyzed a spectrum of diverse, repressed factors defining our current political
realities, it even linked them in sudden, unexpected constellations. The first of
these, particularly relevant for German and Turkish audiences in Germany right
now, triggered further reflections on the tre atment of the Kurdish indepenclence
movement by the increasingly autocrâtic Erdo$an government. The second, no
less pertinent blit more global in nature, not only confronted its audiences with
more specific evidence of the extraordinary complexities of Islamic culture-past
and present-but also alerted us to the ever-mounting Islamophobia in the \7est.
The particular communicative functions of Steyerl's proiect emerged from its
capacity to directly address an affay of intertwined racist, ideological, and politi-
cal prejudices, enhancecl and enforced by the deiusions of a ruling technocratic
triumphalism, in its audience. Every spectator, whether 1ocal, regional, or inter-
national, could instantly grasp the implications of contemporary Islamophobia
(their own and that of others), as much as they could critically reflect on their own
delusions about the supposecl progress of the digital age. The precision of these
communicative exchanges, confronting all the facets of the spectator's own ideo-
logical delusions, constituted an actual sculptural "public sphere," operating in a
manner that could not have been further from the cult aesthetic that ruled Imhof's
pavilion, whose primary audiences lvould nevel transcend the solipsism of self-
enamored, privileged white middle classes in decline.
TWO MAJOR WORKS ât l)ocumenta 14 in Kassel (otherwtse not exactly a wonder-
equation between the crisis of public sculpture and the crisis of the book. The first,
as gigantic as a Christo and just as easily forgotten, instantly became (and was
undoubtedly intended to be) the exhibition's incessantly photographed logo'
Marta Minujín's assemblage of collected books that have at one time or another,
in various places, been censored by religious, political, or ideological prohibitions
rü/hen the work was first
were used to form the facades of a mock Parthenon.
installed in Buenos Aires in 1983, after the abolition of the Argentinean Catholic-
fascist junta, this celebratory retrieval of banned books undoubtedly contributed
to an experience of public redemption and ¡ecollection. In its current reconstruc-
tion, however, soliciting token participation from audiences in Kassel, who are
asked to contribute formeriy banned books from any historical context, the pìece
seemed gratuitous, its size and scale spectacular, inflated to provide a compensa-
tory myth of criticality while failing to address in any specific way our current
conditions of readerly desublimation and the destruction of the public sphere.
Likewise building â structurâl and sculptural wall of books-yet in extreme
contrast to Minujín's spectacle-Maria Eichhorn's Rose Vølland Institute equally
reflected on the intersections of public space, sculpture, and the printed word. And,
of course, the concept of a public sculpture in the form of a librar¡ or a library as
public sculpture, already has a complex history.15 After all, the particular materi-
alit¡ textualit¡ and near-universal accessibility of the book still transcends the
compâratively limited public scope of sculptural objects (the legacies of Duchampt
inevitabiy fetishizing readymades) and architectures of spectacular consumption.
If, in the iate'60s, Lawrence lWeiner had responded to his Minimalist friend Andre
by suggesting that sculptural interventions should become primarily iinguistic I
ones, sculpture has, ever since, faced the question of whether its public presenta- t
tion and distribution would be the book or the brick-and whether sculpture I
would continue to situate irs spectators within the simulation of an architectural t
public sphere or within rhe actuaily accessible regisrers of priltetl language and its (

lancl of new sculptural achievements) substantiate our speculative metaphoric withering forms of distribution. 1

288 ARTFORUM
 I
%;
Opposite page, left: Marta M¡nulin,
Parthenon of Books, L9A3/2OL7,
steel, books, plastic sheet¡ng.
nn! Gobrùrß òra lìl.kd, lnstallation view, Fr¡edrichsplâtz,
sa ¡' jnrl4 {(trr ú .er
irr ¿ir 5d 1!{ó[rr ú' Í¡f, Kassel. From Documenta 14.
Photo: Anita 8ack.

c1 7 úà"c. ¿ ¡14!y.c Opposite page, right: Maria

lo / 7ø1t /&""4. E¡chhorn, Áucfíon recolds ..-
1935-42, Berlin, 2017, digttal iþ..
.'ffi
't t¿.t {allpr
v¡deo, color, silent, 720 minutes.
| !:,wÍb&þ i 4¿ø':ø
Neue Galerie, Kâssel. From
1a,."*+*,/J"ä,îþ øWer ú1**44& tY Documenta 14.
2*p.A$r. lliþ,*
"' ';l i¿"f ** Åá*a¡ Right: lvlaria Eichhon, Unlawfully
7' îs.f/. acquíred books lrcm Jew¡sh

¿ i/',^/1,-¿ø
¿ t:\."/
tt "tu¡futçtl*,
1ú.0/r:
ownershîp, 2Ot7, m¡xed media.
lnstallat¡on vìew, Neue Galer¡e,
Kassel. From Documenta 14.
FTl': =q
fq!ìjr/a"fl 4.44/l v*i,"*,9 Photo: Mathias Völzke.
fiürt
¿
r
t\)u*
16è.þ4( :a/L¿t ffi
,1 &qt4t <t:
'r fr.J1L
úøatþ'
4t44.- ,ri
ffi
i
y i?¿/ø
I fw"'/tøAþ. ¡a r*ó4';
I l"*q
t" h/-øl*øe
l*0,/
',
lìl¿r-/'
rII
4 Mh\wa/--< Ø¿ù/".
a-u l"*4"14 fl
:ventlon l¿wlw
./,/l J u¿¿aøn' /{,auþ /{/r.t
4 6,/, 40, -
,yed. --:==::;

'!7hat that racist persecution operated in tandem with a purely economically motivatecl
lnts would equâtion between the crisis of public sculpture and the crisis of the book. The first, makes Eichhorn's library speciÊc to the current moment of culture in
could also as gigantic as a Christo and just as easily forgotten, instantly became (and was Germany and to the site of the exhibition, however' is the fact that all the books criminalit¡ which the Nazi regime inflicted on the everyday life of German
amp1e. undoubtedly intended to be) the exhibition's incessantly photographed logo. stacked on her eighteen-foot-high shelves were stolen from the libraries of their Jewish citizens.l6
,t a sudden Marta Minujín's assemblage of coliected books that have at one time or another, original owners, the Jewish population of Berlin. Subsequentl¡ in the early 1940s, Thus Eichhorn's work proves, on several levels, what a sculpturai intervention
y mediated in various places, been censored by religious, poiitical, or ideological prohibitions the Berlin City Library acquired these books from the city's pawnshops, where can still enact today, even if we have to assume that the traditional forms of com-
It not only were used to form the facades of a mock Parthenon. \7hen the work was first they had been accumulated after their theft. Thus Rose Valland Instìtute-named mrinication originating from the public sphere have been destroyed. First of all'
nt political instailed in Buenos Aires in 1.983, after the abolition of the Argentinean Catholic- after the curator of the Jeu de Paume in Paris who risked her life to register all the the artist strikingly reactivates ând redefines concepts of site specificit¡ concretized
fhe first of fascist junta, this celebratory retrieval of banned books undoubtedly contributed information about the stolen property, temporafily stored at the museum before in this work by the most detailed accounts of auctions of Jewish property in Kassel
many right to an experience of public redemption and recollection. In its current reconstruc- being taken to Nazi German¡ of the cityt Jewish citizens-claims as its mission, (especially that of the coliection of one of its great cultural patrons, Alexander
ependence tion, however, soliciting token participation from audiences in Kassel, who are and that of its spectators, to contribute to the continuing process of recuperation Fiorino) and Berlin. And additional shocks ofinsight are generated not only by
second, no asked to contribute formerly banned books from any historical context, the piece and restitution of all properties to their original owners and their relatives. And the extensively documented loss of works of art but by the murderous mania with
.enceswith seemed gratuitous, its size and scale spectacula! inflated to provide a compensa- though the institute was founded for its presentation ât Documenta 14, it will which even the most banal household items were listed and registered along with
'lflhile
lture-past tory myth of criticality while failing to address in any specific way our current continue its activities after the exhibition ends. the pittances they achieved as iots for sale. one might wonder whether the
û the \øest. conditions of readerly desublimation and the destruction of the public sphere. Eichhorn follows the precedent of the provenance research that Haacke extremely enlarged projection of these documents endow Eichhorn's work with
ed from its Likewise building a structural and sculptural wall of books-yet in extreme famously initiated in works such as Manet-PROJEKT '74, or Seurat's "Les an overbearing monumentalit¡ one recognizes, on reflection, that it is precisely
and politi- contrast to Minujín's spectacle-Maria Eichhorn's Rose Valland Institute equally Poseuses" (SmallVersion),1888-1975, to trace the inextricable and inexhaustible this intensity of mnemonic reconstruction that present-clay generations might
chnocratic reflected on the intersections of public space, sculpture, and the printed word. And, histories of the documents of culture and barbarism in the 6rst half of the twenti- need most urgentl¡ when they increasingly claim to have sufficientiy studied the
rl, or inter- ofcourse,theconceptofapublicsculptureintheform ofalìbrary,oraiibraryas eth century under the conditions of fascist and racist persecution. \Øhat distin- morivations for the politics of racism and fascism in the past.
rmophobia public sculpture, alre ady has a complex history.ls After all, the particular mate¡i- guishes Eichhorn's project from Haacke's' however, is that she has moved from This sense of invertecl proportions-between the seeming banality of these
r their own alit¡ textualit¡ and near-universal accessibility of the book still transcends the the tracing of painterly masterpieces to analyzing the largely ephemeral accumula- objects of clestroyed lives and the current apâthy towarcl the urgency of critical
on of these comparatively limited public scope of sculptural objects (the legacies of Duchamp's tions of vernacular books, whose actual current monetary value is in fact mostly analysis in the present-mìght engage its readers in a continuing reflection not
;own ideo- inevitably fetishizing readymades) and architectures of spectacular consumption. negligible. But it is precisely this shift from stoien masterpieces to the reiative only on the histories of the victims of German Nazi persecution, but on the actual
erating in a If, in the late'60s, Lawrence \Teiner had responded to his Minimalist friend Andre banality of the stolen books that endows Eichhorn's astonishingly detailed and motivations for fascism's renewecl resoul'ces and motivations. n I

led Imhof's by suggesting that sculptural interventions should become primarily linguistic precise research with all the more impact and insight, succinctly defining what Documeûtd 14 ¡s on uietu itz Kassel through September 17; Skulptur Projekte Münstet is oil uieu tbrough October 1;
ism of self- ones, sculpture has, ever since, faced the question of whether its public p(esenta- the work of mnemonic agency initiated by cultural practices can actually achieve. the Fífty-seuenth Venice Biennale is on vietu through Nouenber 26.

tion and distribution would be the book or the brick-and whether sculpture Not only cloes the vast quantity of confiscated books, and the collective failure BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH IS THE ANDREW W. MELLON PROFESSOR OF IVIODERN ARl AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
would continue to situate its spectators within the simulation of an architectural to return rhem to their original and legal owners' remind us of the extremely (sEE CONfRIBUTORS.)

/ a wonder- public sphere or within rhe acrually accessible registers of printed language and its delayed processes of restitution, for which certain museums in Germany have VisiÌ our archiue at artforum
cotn/irrprint lot p1st rcuenge of
withering forms of distribution. become rightf,rtly infamous, but the books also direct our attention to the fact thcVe¡tice Biennalc, SþulÞtur Proiekte ivliiilsler. ald Documenta, For xotes,seepage 356.
netaPhoric

SEPTEI\¡8ER 2077 2A9

 0ppos¡tê page: Pavel Filonov,
Formula of Spr¡ng, L922-23,
o¡l on canvas,39% x 39%".
Neue Galer¡e, Kassel.
Right: Fridericianum, Kassel,
Germany, May 2017. Photo:
l\4ath¡as Vólzke.
l¡
a'
THE GRAND TOUR
i
THIIUKIilG TWIGE
DANIEL BIRNBAUM ON DOCUMENTA 1-4
HELL lS FULL 0F GOOD INTENTIONS, but heaven is full
of good works: This maxim, attributed to a medieval
French abbot, is one that contemporary curators
should bear in mind. The team behind Documenta 14,
earnestly dubbed "Learning from Athens," has issued
so many well-intended progressive statements and con-
demnations of the neocolonial, patriarchal, hetero-
normative world order that it's hardly surprising the
T exhibition occasionaliy feels like a trip to quinquen-
I
rl
t nial perdition. The good news: This Documenta is not
I
a monolithically pious exercise, but a multiplicity of
proposals. It involves radio and television program-
ming, publications, performances, and educational
seminars, as well as individual and collective works
of art installed in a vast varíety of spaces scattered
across its two locations, Kassel and Athens' Think of
it as a two-headed octopus with some arms unfurling
in distasteful directions, others pointing toward places
f,r
fi! wF r
u¡E t"- l*
a t;12017
of beauty and wonder. However, only viewers willing
to work hard and wear comfortable shoes will be fully
rewarded. This show is not for the lethargic.
Say you arrive in Kassel by train and then do the
obvious and easy thing: take a taxi to the Fridericianum,
where in previous years you encountered some quite
extraordinary works that perhaps even altered your
understanding of what contemporary att caî be. You
will be severely punished for this laziness''llhat you
encounter in these august halls is hard to interpret as
anything but a parody of that dreaded genre' the duti-
ful collection show. On display are works from the
unremarkable holdings of Greece's dysfunctional
EMST I National Museum of Contemporary Art:
mildly interesting Greek Conceptualism and works by
such international household names as Gary Hill,
Joseph Kosuth, and Bill Viola. These are perfect
examples of zombie art, work that no one seems to
'tl
'1 -r ml
il
dl Ed
!:
'rr{l
ù¡¡l¡
!?r
¡¿¡
care about, not even the curators who put it on view-
not aword from the verbose Documenta team about
what poor Bill Viola is doing here!-and they are
installed in the most standardized, institutional way.
If there's a point, beyond the symbolic gesture of fill-
ing the space of Germanyb oldest public museum with
Greek propert¡ it is one the organizers have made by
accident: Things that seem exciting when you first
glimpse them often appear less so just a decade or two
later. Is that what one can learn from Athens?
Actuall¡ says artistic director Adam Szymczyk, the
lesson is that there are no lessons. Vith this helpful
piece of guidance, one can leave the Fridericianum
and go astray along other paths. There are some great
surprises out there, like a glass pavilion I came upon
while looking for another address. Semitransparent
canvases hung from its ceiling, their curvilinear red
and pale-blue patterns suffused by the sun. These
SEPTEMBER 2OL7 291

ru
'hings that seem exciting when you
rst glimpse them often appear less so
lst a decade or two later. Is that what
ne can learn fromAthens?
Above, left: Cecilia V¡cuña, Qu,pu
Womb (The Story of the Red
Thread, Athens),2017, dyed wool
6
lnstallation view, EMST I National
Museum of Contemporary Art,
Athens. Photo: Mathiâs Völzke.
Above, rìght: Works by Stanley
Whitney, 2008-16, oil on linen.
lnstallation v¡ew, EMST I Nat¡onal
lMuseum of Contemporary Art,
Athens. Photo: Mathiâs Völzke.
aa' Left: Works from Synnøve Persen's
.1ä series "Sámi Flag Project,'1977-,
fi acrylic on canvas, screen print,
It textile. Installation view, EMST I
Nãt¡onal Museum of Contemporary
Art, Athens. Photo: l\4athias Völzke.
fr Right: ceta Brätescu, Linea (The
,{ Line), 2012, ink and collage on flve
sheets of paper, each l1É/Bx 75y2" .
EMST I National tMuseum of
Contemporary Aft, Athens.
Right: Vivian Suter, Nisy/os
(V¡v¡an's Bed), 2OL6-L7,
mixed media. lnstallation view,
Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse,
Kassel. Photo: Fred Dott.
nil rH
w4
_,
Éry¡È¡ f¡Þ..
W
-.-irsËæ,r#u.
organic shapes, created with volcanic materials, earth,
and pigment, seemed to radiate life. I realized they
l¡t{Þ must have been made by the same artist, previously
unknown to me, who had installed equally dazzlíng
canvases in a humble wooden structure in an Athens
park, where they were suspended in open air. The
grandiose colorist, Guatemala-based Vivian Suter
(who is also portrayed, along with her mother, painter
Elisabeth \Wild, in Rosalind Nashashibi's intimate
and profoundly empathetic fiim Viuian's Gørden,
201.7 , at Kassel's natural-history museum), really is
a discover¡ and her work, I think, embodies what
this exhibition is striving for in its most sympathetic
moments. Unassuming yet jubiiant, Suter's paintings
are said to deal with the extreme meteorological
conditions on the former coffee plantation where
RW
she and her mother live and work, and at their best
seem to channel not only their maker's psychologi-
cal energies but also the cosmic powers of the
weather. Or am I projecting too much? All I can say
with certainty is that these canvases, installed in
sites of modest everyday splendor, weave themselves
into an experiential mesh in which works of art and
viewers' subjectivity intertwine organically with each
other and with the rich textures of daily life. That,
I believe, is a realization of the exhibition's utopian
aspirations, sponsored by Volkswagen.
Occasionall¡ one can detect traces of another
exhibition behind the politically persuasive but some-
times aesthetically underwhelming explorations of
migration, colonialism, and economic inequality. This
semi-hidden show-within-a-show is fruitfully preoc-
cupied with artworks that explore a certain diagram-
matic aesthetic in textiles, sound experiments' and
notational systems, works that st¡ive to capture the
eiusive synesthetic mechanisms of processes we might
call visionary. At the Neue Galerie, there is a reward-
ing passage from Russian philosopher and painter
Pavel Filonov's extraordinary canvases Cosmos
(Formula of the Cosmos),1.918-19, and Formulø of
Spring, 1922-23,to fragments of microtonal com-
poser Mikhail Matyushin's scoré for the Futurist
opeta Victory ouer the Sun, L913,via a long corridor
where classical marble figures keep company with
ll,
?
I
ææ :
I
I
Hungarian shaman-poet Katalin Ladik's collages
and vocal compositions from the late 1960s and'70s.
All of these works map inner or imaginative worlds
and must be situated within an ecstatic rather than a
{ationalist paradigm. Unfortunately, many of these
spiritual diagrams are in vitrines, a traditional curato-
rial device for the display of archival materials that,
in this case, domesticates the artists'wayward energies.
It is a missed opportunity that left me wishing the
curators had been as experimental with the presenta-
tion of objects as in their programming and overall
exhibition structure.
The most radical decision-to situate the show
in two countries-does produce plenty of peculiar
moments of déjà vu, and these echo and doppel-
gänger effects are âmong the more intriguing aspects :
of the entire project. The frisson of stumbling on
Suter's work in Kassel, for instance, was amplified
by the pleasant sense of recognition engendered by
having seen her work in Athens a few days earlier.
I was also h"ppy to encounter Chiiean Cecilia
Vicuña's art twice. Her massive knotted strings of
SEPTEMBER 2OL7 293
 i
Ì
t t
t
I
I
i
It
¡
,È
,t

crimson wool, hanging from the ceilings of EMST in

Above: R. H- Quaytman,nin,
Chapter 29,2O!5, oil, s¡lk-screen
ink, and gesso on wôod, 243/a x
40%". Neue Galer¡e, Kassel.
Below: Artist unknown,.lohan n
m W¡ n cke I m a n n Sh own
J oachi
aéainst an ltal¡an Landscape,
ca. early nineteenth century,
oil on canvas, 28 x 331h" .
Neue Galer¡e, Kassel.
Athens and Documenta Halle in Kassel, represent
quipus,pre-Columbian string objects that may be the
traces of a knot-based writing system. Blown up to
monumental proportions, they are among the few visu-
ally spectacular works in an otherwise archival and
document-heavy show. The reiterated appearances of
such arresting works as Vija Celmins's subtle depic-
tions of the night sky; Geta Brátescu's intriguing draw'
ings, videos, and coliages; and Stanley'S7hitney's
intensely coiorful paintings were vaguely but some-
how beguilingly disconcerting, instigating startling
mix-ups of perception and recollection. In ÏThitney's
case, I cherished the double presentâtion of his
paìntings, as well as their juxtaposition with Tracey
Rose's red pillar Toutcr #1 Cnrltatirl. #1 : Made for
Hoerikwaggo,201,7 , at EMST. The pairing triggered
a curious chain reaction of monochromatic effects
that carried the viewer into adjacent galleries, where
Synnøve Persen's deconstructed Sámi flags proved
unexpectedly reminiscent of Ellsworth Kelly's
abstractions. Another engaging repetition was that
of R. H. Quaytman's elusive yet mesmeric works,
although the grouping of her paintings in Kassel's
Neue Galerie makes quite an impression in its own
right. They are part of a series dealing with the discov-
ery of the fact that the titular figure in Paul Klee's
Angelus Nouus,1920, famously immortalized as the
angel of history by lfalter Benjamin, was mounted
on top of a portrait of Martin Luther. Quaytman's
forensic explorations contribute to a German Jewish
theme that unfolds across the exhibition and that,
especially at the Neue Galerie, evolves into an account
of German guilt that seems to offer no possibility of
reparation, let alone any glimpse <lf redemption. No
reason for optimism or enthusiasm here.

294 ARTFORUI\,1
 Above: Piotr Uklañski, Real Naz¡s,
2017, C-prints, text plate.
lnstallation view, Neue Galer¡e,
Kassel. Photo: Nils KIìnger.

Right: Maria Eichhon, Unlawfully

acqu¡Ted books frcm Jewish
crimson wool, hanging from the ceilings of EMST in ow n ersh i p (delail), 2OL7,
Athens and Documenta Halle in Kassel, represent mixed media. lnstallation v¡ew,
Neue Galer¡e, Kassel. Photo:
quipus, pre-Columbian string objects that may be the Mathias Völzke.
traces of a knot-based writing system. Blown up to
Below: lvlarta M¡nujín, Parthenon
monumental proportions, they are among the few visu- of Books (detail), 1943/ 2oL7,
ally spectacular works in an otherwise archival and steel, books, plâstic aheet¡ng.
lnstallation view, Frjedrichsplatz,
document-heavy show. The reiterated appearances of Kassel. Photo: Falkenstein
such arresting works as Vija Celmins's subtle depic- Heinz-Dieter/Alamy.

tions of the night sky; Geta Brätescu's intriguing draw-

ings, videos, and collages; and Stanley \Øhitney's
intensely colorful paintings were vaguely but some-
how beguilingly disconcerting, instigating startling
mix-ups of perception and recollection. In'l7hitney's
case, I cherished the double presentation of his
paintings, as well as their juxtaposition with Tracey
Rose's red pillar Toøer #1 Caryatid #1: Made for
Hoerikutaggo,20IT, at EMST. The pairing triggered
a curious chain reaction of monochromatic effects
that carried the viewer into adjacent galleries, where
Synnøve Persen's deconstructed Sámi flags proved
unexpectedly reminiscent of Ellsworth Kelly's
abstractions. Another engaging repetition was that
of R. H. Quaytman's elusive yet mesmeric works,
although the grouping of her paintings in Kassel's
Neue Galerie makes quite an impression in its own
right. They arc part oÍ a series dealing with the discov-
ery of the fact that the titular figure in Paul Klee's
Angelus Nouus,1920, famously immortalized as the
angel of history by \Øalter Benjamin, was mounted
on top of a portrait of Martin Luther. Quaytman's
And yet this grim section is one of the show's stron-
gest pârts, anchoring the German-Greek axis in histori-
cal material and reminding us of a cultural geography
that emerged two centuries ago. Around 1800, clas-
sical Greece established a firm grip on the imagina-
tions of a generation of German thinkers and poets,
and this Romantic fascination with the Hellenic world
was passed down to some of the most influential
phiiosophers of the Western tradition, from Hegel to
card-carrying Nazi Martin Heidegger' all of whom
viewed Germany's spiritual mission as a fulfillment of
Greek beginnings. In the Neue Galerie's staging of this
genealog¡ we encounter art historian Johann Joachim
tWinckelmann, the creator of the cult of Greek beaut¡
reclining in his Arcadia, and \Me come across a kitschy
rendering of the Parthenon that was shown in a legend-
ary National Socialist exhibition in the early \940s.
On the first floor, Piotr Uklarîski (every Polish artist
The decision to situate the show in
two countries does produce plenty of
peculiar moments of déjàvu, and these
echo effects are among the proiect's
more intrþing aspects.
Sander. A Gerhard Richter portrait of Arnold Bode,
founder of Documenta, hangs near Bode's sketches
from a trip to Greece. Also nearby are works on pâper
and canvas by members of a family whose notorious
paterfamilias, Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt,
accumulated a vast trove of modernist art confis-
cated from Jewish families. Szymczyk was hoping to
show works from Gurlitt's stolen collection as part of
his Documenta. Instead, this archaeology of anti-
Semitism and guilt culminates in an ambitious work
about Nazi looting. Centered around a tower of books
stolen from Jewish families, and including, among its
many elements, the establishment of a new research
institute focused on the restitution of looted art, Maria
Eichhornt unforgettable piece is the principal contri-
bution to this exhibition. Its power has nothing to do
with the vacuous generalizations found in some of the
more annoying works that try to make moral state- ;

forensic explorations contribute to a German Jewish
theme that unfolds across the exhibition and that,
especially at the Neue Galerie, evolves into an account
of German guilt that seems to offer no possibility of
you have ever heard of is in this Documentâ) presents
a chilling follow-up to his well-known 1998 installa-
tionThe Nazis,composed of stiils of actors playing
henchmen of the.Reich; Real Nazis, 2017, rs a
ments, such as Marta Minujín's ridiculous Parthenon
of censored books on the Friedrichsplatz. Eichhorn's
modus operandi is based on the opposite: specificity. fl
DocLønentd 14 is on uieu in Kassel tbrough September 17.

reparation, let alone any glimpse of redemption. No roundup of actual Nazi soldiers anðlot patty members, DANIEL BIRNBAUM IS A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR OF ARTFORUM AND THE

s,rch asloreph Goebbels' Joseph Beuys, and August

DIRECIOR OF MODERNA MUSEET IN STOCKHOLM.
reason for optimism or enthusiasm here.

SEPTEI\4BER 2017 295


THE GRAND TOUR
TIIE LONG U¡EW
CLAIRE BISHOP ON THE 57TH VENICE BIENNALE
EVERYONE I SPOKE TO at the opening of "Viva Arte
Viva," the centerpiece of the Fifty-Seventh Venice
Biennale, was unambiguously assertive in their con-
demnation. So boringl So apolitical! So neo-primitivist!
So ønthropologicalr. So male (65 percent) and so
white (57 percent)! And let's not even get started on
aii those themed pavilions: "Time ancl Infinity" ?
"Artists and Books" ? And dicl you read the wall texts?
Embarrassing!
Some of these comments were warranted, but their
vehemence was disconcerting, because I found curator
Christine Macel's Biennale fa¡ from offensive; I'd even
say enjoyable. The artistic selections, if less diverse
than one would hope for in201,7, are solid ancl largely
laudable. The show manages to avoid the reek of
blue-chip gallery money that increasingly hovers
around Venice, which is no mean feat. The installation
as a whole is more cligestible than Massimiliano
Gioni's "The Ëncyclopedrc Palace" in 2013 (a deluge
of outsider artists exhibiting exorbitant quantities
296 ARTFORUIVl
of minutiae) and more airy and optimistic than
Okwui Enwezor's "All the Slorld's Futures" in 2015
(a somber parade of heavy hitters in a cramped archi-
tectural schema).
Of course, clarity and navigability have never been
the highest priorities in radical curating. But they do
make a show more graspable-which is especially
welcome when the surrounding Biennale includes
eighty-three national pavilions, twenty-three collat-
eral events, and the perpetual noise of social media,
hot takes, and insta-opinions. Macel's decision to give
the work room to breathe, rather than cramming as
much as possible into every square inch' shows a rare
confidence in art's ability to speak for itself' The tracle-
off is that it's difficult to let the worktalkand to artic-
ulate an intellectual framework that speaks to the
state of the world. Macel has never been a particularly
theoretical or political curator-she excels at well-
paced installatlon, reinfur"ed by visual continuitics
and formal echoes that weave works together via
Left: John Latham, Untitled Rel¡ef
Pa¡ntíng, 7963, books, metal, wire,
plaster, and emulsìon on hardboard,
357/s x 48 x3Y2" . From "Viva Afte
V¡va: Pavilion ofArtists and Books,"
Central Pavilion, Venice.
0ppos¡te page: L¡liana Porter,
El hombre con el hacha y ottas
situaciones breves, Venec¡a 2077
/(Man w¡th Ax and Other Bríef
Situations, Venice 2O17) (detail),
mixed media. lnstâllat¡on v¡ew,
Arsenale, Ven¡ce. From "Viva Arte
Viva: Paviiion of T¡me and lnfinity.
Photo: chandra Glick.
motifs and rhythms. Her exhibition is at its strongest
when these connections ripple sensuousiy through
the show, rather than determining the framework of
each section. In the Arsenale, for example, thread
becomes a beguiling, er, thread: from Maria Lai's
stitched books opposite Lee Mingwei's Mending
Project, 2009 1201,7,to the dialogue between Francis
Upritchard's mannequins and Cynthia Gutiérrez's
sculptures, via numerous textile works that culminate
in Judith Scott's fiber bundles and Sheila Hicks's pro-
tuberant mounds of brilliantly colored wooi. Another
subtheme is self-reflexivity aboLrt Venice itself-f¡om
Nicolás García Uriburu's project to temporarily tint
the Grand Canal bright green (Green Venice,1968l
to a stunning miniretrospective of Raymond Hains,
which includes torn posters for the Thirty-Third
Biennale of 1966.
This spectatorial wieldiness is not a trivial accom-
plishment. Visirors are able [u scc [Lc eltirc cxLibi-
tion, give time to each work of art, and discuss what

they've seen-because they've all been exposed to tl.re
same thing. This goes against the prevalent rrend
among biennial and quinquennial curator.s to procluce
exhibitions that are simply unmanageable, either tem-
porally (weeks if not months of video arr) or sparially
(forty-seven venues in Athens!). Such gestures, while
replicating contemporary conditions of information
overload, have consequences for the public sphere; in
short, they exacerbâte its fragmentation. To produce
an exhibition that can actually be attended to and
fully seen within a day and a half-without panic or:
FoMo-is ân unusuaily generous act.
So let's proceed to the organizing rubrics. The title
"Viva Arte Viva" posits the platitude that art is at the
center of life. Macel splits her exhibition into thematic
"trans-paviiions," two of which are in the Giardini
("Paviiion of Artists and Books" ancl "Pavilion of
Joys and Fears"), with the remaining seven ("Pavilion
of the Common," "Pavilion of the Earth," "Pavilion
of Traditions," "Pavilion of Shamans," "Dionysian
Pavilion," "Pavilion of Colors," and "Pavilion of
Time and infinity") filling the Arsenale. Shamans,
earth, tradition, Dionysus . . . You start to get a sense
of where the neo-primitivism critique comes from.
Macel herself characterizes these pavilions as umbrel-
las for gathering together "famiiies of artists. "
One striking thing about these a¡tistic families is
that they're on the olcler side; only thirteen of the art-
ists were born after 1980. Among the work of the
latter, Firenze Lai's modest, elegiac paintings of dis-
tended figures in quietly disconcerting situations (e.g.,
passing through airport securit¡ getting a migraine)
and Marcos Ávila Forero's video of Afro-Colombians
waist-deep in a river, percussively slapping the water's
surface (Atrato,201.4) Ieave an impression, but,
beyond that, contributions from this cohort are
iargely unremarkable. Meanwhìle, strong works by
artists in their sixties or older are almost too numer-
ous to mention. The first section of the Arsenale, the
"Pavilion of the Common," opens in spartan fash-
ion with the pairing of Juan Downey's L979 vtdeo
installation The Circle of Fires (a chronicle of the
artist's interactions with Yanomami Inclians in the
Amazon) and Rasheed Araeen's Zero to Infinity in
Yenice,2016-17 (a colorful, interactive rifÍ on First
Structure, his skeletal Minimalist box of 1966-67).
The rest of the Arsenale includes classic pieces like
OHO Group's "Summet Projects," 1969; Bonnie Ora
Sherk's Crossroads Community (The Farm), 1974-
80; and three works from Franz Erhard \Valther's
" Wandformationen" (\7all Formations), 1979-86.
There are also memorable contributions from the
more or less recently departed, e.g., John Latham
(1,921-2006), whose assemblages of violently repur-
posed publications hang irom the walls and ceilng rn
the "Pavilion of Artists and Books," and Kananginak
29A ARfFORUM
I
To produce an exhibition that Pootoogook (1935-201'0, the first First Nations artist
to show at Venìce), with an appealing clisplay of his
carT actLtally be attended to and austere drawings depicting everyday Inuit 1ife.
fully within aday and a
seen Another noteworthy characteristic of the Biennale
is the sulprisingly high number of participatory' per-
half-without panic or FOMO- formative, and socially engaged works, which still
is an unusually generous act. remains somewhat unusu3'l at Venice. Even more
unexpectedl¡ this work is well installed and visually
rich-as opposed to its usual presentation as under-
whelmrng photo documentatron that just hammers
home the fact that you had to be there (but weren't).
In some cases, in this show, there ls a chance to be
there, even if such reanimation inevitably underscores
the many differences between original and iteration.
I wasn't able to attend revered choreographer Anna
Halprin's Plønetary Dønce, 1'9801201'7, but Instagram
shows me that many others did and apparently gave
l'{ their all to this fusion of aerobics and ritualistic
prayer. The Japanese collective THE PLAY has re-
created their IE: THE PLAY HAVE A HOUSE, on
which they lived and sailed for five days in L972,
offering performances in a small peak-roofed struc-
ture similar to the one used on their voyage thirty-five
yeârs âgo. The most telling reactivation is David
Medalla's A Stitch inTime,196812017, a large swoop
of linen suspended from the ceiling and reaching
down to waist height. Above it hang reels of brightly
colorecl thread, and the auclience is invited to embroi-
der the fabric. Images of the work's l,ondon debut
shorv a slowly accumulating graffiti of collective pat-
terning by a cluster of focused participânts. In201"7,
by contrast, people just quickly secure their business
cards to the fabric and move on. Meclitative craft
skills have been replaced by slapdash self-promotion.
These socially engaged works from the '60s and
'70s are updated with a handful of contemporary
relational projects. Viewe¡s can drop off torn clothes
at Lee Mingwel's Mending Project, where he wili
fix them in glaringly nonmatching thread while
Above: Dawn Kasper, fhe Sun, the Moon, and the Stals, 20lT Pedormance
engaging you in conversation. In the rotunda ofthe
view, Central Pavilion, Venice, May 4,2017 . Dawn Kasper. From "V¡va Arte Central Pavilion, Dawn l(asper, who has committed
Viva: Pav¡lion ofAftists and Books." Photo: Francesco Gal{i Below; Raymond
Hains, 33rd yenice B ienn¡a!, !966, poster fragments on canvas, 41 x 56 %"
to being on-site for the run of the show, has installed
From "Viva Arte Viva: Pavilion of Anists and Books," Central Pavilion, Venice a studio setup that includes musicai instruments,
sofas, and several trestle tables of gear (The Sun, the
Moon-and tbe Størs,201,7). A program called Open
Table extends the participatory motif, offerìng visi-
tors the chance to sit down and lunch with an ârtist in
the Biennale.
All of these projectsare more convivial than dis-
comfiting. Only two, both by biennial favorites of the
'90s, occasion some controversy. In the Central
Pavilion, Olafur Eliasson's Green light-an artistic
workshop, 201.6-,produces wooden geodesic con-
structions, partially dyed green, each incorporating
a small bulb and functioning as a lamp. They sel1
for €250 ($291) a pop, the proceeds going to NGOs

Tg
I'
I t
Given that the world is going to hell
in a handbasket, there is something to
be said for zooming out from political
immediacies and considering the
bigger picture.
helping with the refugee crisis. Like Eliasson's lir¿le
\un,20L2-, a portable solar lamp for people without
access to eiectricity in Africa, Green light is a social
business model that adapts the artist's design interests
to a good cause. The kicker-at least for most of the
people I spoke to during the opening-is that the
workshop is staffed by refugees (though members of
the publù are also invited to participate). Due to a
condition set by the local government, the refugees
can't be paid, but in lieu of wages are offered iob
3OO ARTFORUI\4
,
1.
rì
/l,
t g *;-
training, legal advice, language classes, and other ser-
vices. On the whole, visitors seemed to be more con-
cerned about the objectification of refugees than
about their exploitation as workers. I have to say th4t
whenever I visited the space, it felt more like a work-
shop than the "human zoo" that offended a number
of my professional colleagues. I spoke to two refugees
who told me that it didn't feel like work ("it's more
fun"), that the hours were lax, and that, since workers
had leeway to vâry the design, the task of constructing
the lamps remained relatively interesting. But it must
be assumed that most viewers won't engage in conver-
sation with the fabricators-it feels awkward to inter-
rupt someone at work-and the setup seen.rs designed
more to promote sales than to give any specific insight
into the refugee experience.
Ernesto Neto's collaboration with the Huni Kuin
olBraziland Peru forms the second tricky flash point.
Neto has worked with indigenous peoples for several
years; in April, he published a book of exchanges u'ith
thirty-two Huni Kuin communities. His work in
"Viva Arte Yiva," A Sacred Place,201'7, is located at
the central point ofthe Corderie, in the "Pavilion of
-ï
I
fl¡ 't' 'r'çq¡6'rcnr ffi
Shamans." The artist has installed a large orânge
woven-mesh tent that evokes the Huni Kuin Cupixawø,
a place for ceremonieó and meetings. During the open-
ing days, Neto offered viewers what was billed as an
"Encounter with the Huni Kuin"-an unfortunate
phraseology redolent of ethnographic safaris. Even
though the installation featured a huge wall text
explaining the collaboration ancl included numerous
publications, such as the compendium of plant-
based medicine Unø isî kayawø,little could be done
to prevent the interface between the Huni Kuin (in
full traditional regalia) and their kitten-heeled,
iPhone-wielding visitors from appearing comically
disconnected-not least when the former initiatecl a
procession line enthusiastically trailed by the latter.
This was followed by a stilted presentation in which
the Huni Kuin (via Neto as translator) explained the
;
passing of a recent law in Brazil that would lead to
further deforestation of the Amazon. Macel's decision
to foreground the art and knowledge of the indigenous
is welcome, especially at a moment when the environ-
ment is faced with catastrophic destruction, ancl
when global stability is threatened by the insatiable
 I
2

.r nçççmxr
ffi

üt'

opposite page: Vlew of olafur Ellasson's Grcen llqht-an attlstlcwotkshop,2OL6-, CentÍal Pav¡lion, Venice, May 29,2Ot7. From "Viva Arte Viva: Pavil¡on of
Artists and Books,' Photo: Chandra Glick. Left: Ernesto Neto, Encountet wlth the Huni Ku¡n-Boa Dance conducted with the Hunl Kuln,2017. Perfomance view,
Giardini, Ven¡ce, May L0,20t7. Photo: Jacopo Salv¡. Above: Shimabuku, fheSnowMonkeys offexas-Dosnow monkeysrcmembersnowmoonta¡rs?(detail),
2016,vinyì wall text, HDvìdeo (color, sound,20 minutes). From "Viva Arte Viva: Pavilion ofthe Earth,'Arsenale, Venice. Below: CharlesAtlas,TheTyrcnnyof
Consciousness, 2017, fve-channel video, color, sound. lnstallation view, Arsenale, Ven¡ce. From "Viva Arte Viva: Pavilíon ofthe Earth." Photo: ltalo Rondinella.

lvice, language classes, and other ser-
role, visitors seemed to be more con-
re objectification of refugees than
¡itation as workers. I have to say that
:d the space, it felt more like a work-
ìuman zoo" that offended a number
al colleagues. I spoke to fwo refugees
rt it didn't feel like work ("it's more
Shamans." The artist has installed alarge orange
woven-mesh tent that evokes the Huni KuinCupixawa,
a place for ceremonies and meetings. During the open-
ing days, Neto offered viewers what was billed as an
"Encounter with the Huni Kuin"-an unfortunate
phraseology redolent of ethnographic safaris. Even
though the installation featured a huge wall text
explaining the collaboration and included numerous
greed of thuggish plutocrats. But in Neto's work, as
with Eliasson's workshop, more could have been done
to stage this encounter in a way that diminished the
ethnographic angle-for example, by inviting the
Huni Kuin to lead dedicated workshops during the
summer rather than displaying them as a drive-by
during the opening.
It's not uninteresting that Neto and Eliasson, who
continue to plow their lucrative furrows making sig-
nature installations, now feel the need to foreground
the social implications of their work in collaborations
with actual constituencies. Again, the problem is not
the inclusion of refugees or indigenous peoples per se.
It's the sense of being back in the 1990s paradigm of
all three projects today comes across as decidedly retro.
A more direct engagement with contemporary poiitics
might have helped to balance these projects-but this
was in conspicuously short supply. (According to my
count, the only work with overtly partisan content is
Charles Atlas's Tyranny of Consciousness,2017, a
five-channel video of Florida sunsets accompanied by
the musings of scabrous drag queen Lady Bunny.)
But given that the world is going to hell in a hand-
basket, there is also something to be said for zooming
out from granular political immediacies and consider-
ing the bigger picture. At rare moments, "Viva Arte
Viva" prompts us to do just that. Liliana Porter's E/
hombre con el hacha y otras situaciones breues,
Anthropocene into dialogue and they trigger the
thought that humanity, if it survives climate change,
will be fast on its way back to the flint. Pondering the
Biennale through this end of the telescope conduces a
certain detachment and melanchol¡ making the vit-
riol directed at Macel's exhibition seem all the more
overblown. For the general audience visiting Venice
between May and November, "Viva Arte Viva" is a
perfectly strong survey of work largely overlooked by
art history and (for the most part) by the market.
Those of us seeking more dynamic and catalyzing
responses to the end of the world will just have to
await the next Biennale. I
Tbe Fifty-Seuenth Venice Biennale is on uiew through Nouember 26.

)urs were lax, and that, since workers publications, such as the compendium of plant- the ethnographic turn and those endless debates over Venecia 201.7 (Man with Ax and Other Brief Situations, CLAIRE BISHOP IS A PROFESSOR IN THE PH.D. PROGRAM ¡N ART HISTORY
ry the design, the task of constructing based medicine Una isi kayawa,little could be done the ariist as patronizing benefactor. Haven't we Venice 201.7), for example, installed near the end of AT THE CUNY GRADUATE CENTER, NEW YORK.

red relatively interesting. But it must
most viewers won't engage in conver-
rbricators-it feels awkward to inter-
work-and the setup seems designed
: sales than to give any specific insight
experience.
,'s collaboration with the Huni Kuin
u forms the second tricky flash point.
J with indigenous peoples for several
e published a book of exchanges with
ri Kuin communities. His work in
," A SacredPlace,201.7, is located at
r of the Corderie, in the "Pavilion of
to prevent the interface between the Huni Kuin (in
full traditional regalia) and their kitten-heeled,
iPhone-wielding visitors from appearing comically
disconnected-not least when the former initiated a
procession line enthusiastically trailed by the latter.
This was followed by a stilted presentation in which
the Huni Kuin (via Neto as translator) explained the
passing of a recent law in Brazil that would lead to
further deforestation of the Amazon. Macel's decision
to foreground the art and knowledge of the indigenous
is welcome, especially at a moment when the environ-
ment is faced with catastrophic destruction, and
when global stability is threatened by the insatiable
moved on from that? The current decade offers more
complex paradigms for do-gooding artist and margin-
alized other-as seen, for example, in the prickly
work of Renzo Martens, which, whatever you think
of it, does include a reflection on the artist's own role
and that of art-world institutions. On top of that, the
past few years of intense debate about cultural appro-
priation have transformed our understanding of the
'We
politics of representation. may give Halprin's
Planetary Dance apass because it's "historical," but
if it were made this year by a thirty-five year-old, it
would probably be denounced as cultural appropria-
tion. In short, the kind ofnaive utopianism that infuses
the Arsenale, offers a panorama of miniature tableaux
in which human life and labor are laid out in scenes
that are at once touching, trivial, and sublime: A man
smashes junk into tiny smithereens; a woman rakes a
vast sweep of red particles; another sits alone knitting
an ocean. Or take Shimabuku's video of snow mon-
keys encountering snow for the first time since having
been removed from their natural habitats years earlier,
or his poigna nt Oldest and Necuest Tools of Human
Beings,201"6, a display of four prehistoric flints sitting
next to four models of the iPhone, each paired by size
and color as technological soulmates spanning millen-
nia. These works bring the archaeological and the

SEPTEMBER 201"7 3O1,

THE GRAND TOUR

BORIIERAS FORM
NUIT BANAION DOCUMENTA 14

craffiti, Dionys¡ou Areopagitou street, Athens, April 9,2017. Photo: Lou¡sa Goul¡amak¡/Getty lmages.

3O2 ARIFORUI\'1

tlul
INAUGURATED BY ARNOLD BODE in 1"955 in the
bombed-out ruins of Kassel, a formerly industrial
city that ended up on the eastern fringes of what had
newly become-!üest Germany, Documenta was
famously intended to heal the wounds oi recent
European history by affirming the continuity of
('Síestern) modernism. At the core of this civilizing
mission was abstraction, whose formal language
became a symbol of individualism and artistic free-
dom, and a means to differentiate'$Øest from East in
the early years of the Cold \íar. Kassel thus became
the stage for the construction of the contemporary
in relation to highly contested (art-) historical, socio-
political, and ideological entanglements. Circa 1955,
the formation and future of "Europe" as moral arbi-
ter and guardian of humanistic values was given a
place and an aesthetic in Kassel, underscoring its
identity as the border of the West.
More than sixty years later, the artistic director of
Documenta 14, Adam Szymczyk, and his curatorial
team have considered some more recent permutations
of these foundational conditions, myths, and aspira-
tions. The show, split and shared between Athens and
Kassel, updates the mega-exhibition's historical status
as a frontier and bellwether of \íestern humanism for
contemporary conditions of neoliberal global capital-
ism. Under the so-called working title "Learning from
Athens, " the curators have responded to the changed
landscape of today with a self-professed "transna-
tional, and anti-identitarian parliament of bodies"
that grapples above all with timely questions about
borders and their power to police people, knowledge,
and (art) history..The curators were aware of the
stakes in choosing Athens as an exemplary city for
these issues ("In Athens, the actual hardship of daily
life is mixed with the humiliating stigmâ of 'crisis'
imprinted on the communal body in a well-known,
Andrzej Wróblewskl, Execut¡on
Aéalnst a Wail,1949, oil on
canvas, 47 Y4 x 353/a'. EMST I
National Museum of Contemporary
Art, Athens.
pseudo-compassionate, moralizing and in its essence
neocolonial and neoliberal formula"), even if the
abundant graffiti on the city's public walls suggested
inhabitants #ere seething with anger against the
German-subsidized spectacle: orln DocuMENTA, r
REFUSE TO EXOTICIZE MYSELF TO INCREASE YOUR CUL-
TURAL CAPITAL; EARNING FROM ATHENS; THE CRISIS OF
A COMMODITY OR THE COMMODITY OF CRISIS?; CAN
you KILLTHE HIERARCHyvTtrITN vou? Documenta's
import of German financial resources and its discur-
sive solidarity with the global precariat may have
been a bid for historic ¡econciliation, but the often-
bitter public reactions made it clear how deeply the
asymmetrical power relations betvqeen Germany and
Greece are embedded in the show's structure. In the
face of such frictions, it is worth asking what it meant
for Documenta to expand its borders to Greece while
also claiming to dissolve so many symbolic borders-
between past and present, East and'lØest, North and
South-in order to bring better- and lesser-known
histories and horrors of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries into our common space.
As É,tienne Balibar has said, borders are polysemic
mechanisms that regulate the inclusion and exclusion
of individuals within two contradictory notions of
"the people": demos, "the collective subject of repre-
sentation, decision-making, and rights;" and ethnos,
"an imagined community of membership and filia-
tion." Seeking to perform the border itself as form,
Szymczyk's exhibition implemented these concepts of
the border in its structure, which included not only
the binational program and the requisite movement
within Europe's theoretically passport-free Schengen
Area but also the show's curatorial methods, choices
of artistic positions, and discursive apparatus. The
constant dissonance between demos and ethnos could
not have been more jarring: rVhen I flew to Kassel
from Athens, multiple security checkpoints and teams
oÍ polizei were in place, gesturing to current anxieties
about "protecting" the contemporary European
demos from migrants and the specter of terrorism. In
this chilly encounter, the representative democracy of
the nation-state superseded Documenta's attempt to
enable a "presentist democrac¡" to borrow a term
coined by political scientist Isabell Lorey: The tightly
controlled administrative border at the Kassel airport
trumped the more inclusive notion of the people as
something constituted in the aleatory moment of their
assembly. In talking about the show, Szymczyk
emphasized the idea that each visitor should have a
share in the exhibition, thus creating a "real-time"
ethnos built on what Lorey calls a o'radical contin-
gency of equals" that is precarious, incomplete, and
based on difference.
To this end, though the same roster of artists was
present in both cities, the process of searching for
them in multiple venues (not only between cities but
also within each city) could turn quickly from gratify-
ing to frustrating. Forced to perform this deliberately
curated choreograph¡ the viewerr found herself vari- '
ously inciuded and excluded, with the result that any
incipient sense of sovereignty was undermined. Visitors
could also book a member of the 'ichorus" to accom-
pany them while "instigating dialogue, debate, and
questioning," as a way of supplanting the didactic and
hierarchical ransfer of information of conventional
SEPTEMBER 2OL7 ?O3

This is the Documenta I always wanted:
difficult, demanding, experimental, and
unafraid to take risks.
exhibitions. S7ith minimal signage, scant information,
and the chorus all working to upend the standard
hierarchies of producing and receiving knowledge, this
Documenta was a jumble of serendipitous, baffling,
and missed encounters that kept exceeding the con-
fines ofits venues.
Of particular note was how the self-conscious
relinking of our "contemporaneity" with the interwar
and postwar periods successfully muddied the periodiz-
ing borders of (art) histor¡ which have so often cast
the present as emerging fully constituted post-1989.
These same borders have also dictated the narrativiza-
tion of the present as a foregone conclusion, the only
possible teleological end point of neoliberal capital-
ism. As the works on view in Documenta make clear,
however, mâny artists working between 1945 and
1989 confronted the fragmentation and redistribution
ofpolitical space and the ideological appropriation of
aesthetic idioms as a deeply contested process with no
clear outcome. In the Greek context, this includes the
period of the right-wing military junta, also cailed the
Regime of the Colonels (1'967-74), whose road to
power can be traced back to the Axis occupation of
.llar rü/hile
the country during'World Ii' some artists
of the postwar era were witness to struggles for decol-
onization and acts of solidarity between iiberation
3O4 ARÏFORUM
f,.' :'l'r I
:.4.t
I
t
movements across the globe, others had to live with
the aftermaths of Nazism, Fascism, and totalitarian-
ism, which were still very much embedded in struc-
tures of everyday life, and of course not only in Greece
and Germany. For example, between 1.945 and 1.949,
when socialist realism became the official doctrine
in Poland, Andrzej Wróblewski developed a style of
"direct realism" that aesthetically mediated the "has-
been" and the "yet to come" in ways that shift our
understanding of figuration in a time when the nature
of postwar reality was stiil taking shape. In Execution
Against a'Wall, L949, for instance (on view at EMST
I National Museum of Contemporcry Art in Athens;
other works of the artist's are in the Neue Galerie in
Kassel), \fróblewski's painterly experiments turn the
body into a phenomenological territory in which the
fractional space between life and death, between bio-
power and necropolitics, speaks to the trauma of a
barely buried past sdll lingering in the present.
A number of contempora-ry artists' too, retrospec-
tively engage this fraught period in ways that broaden
the discussion far beyond Eu¡ocentric notions of
East and ìlest, with the relationship of Germany and
Greece often serving as a metaphor or mirror of North-
South relations more generally' Specrfically, many
works in the show revisit moments when history
ï
Í
i
seemed open-ended-those fragile junctures in
which various futures were equally possible and plau-
sible before they became concretized, especially in the
trajectories of the emerging nation-states that would
go on to constitute the Global South. A standout in this
regard is Naeem Mohaiemen's riveting three-channel
video installatiorTwo Meetings ønd a Funeral,2017,
on view in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel,
which investigates the newly independent Bangladesh's
navigation between two historic meetings-the
Algiers Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in
1.973 and the Lahore Summit of the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation in Pakistan a year later-tracing
the country's turn from the embrace of socialism to
solidarity with the Islamic world. \lith original film
footage and the narration of historian Vijay Prashad
(who also appears as a protagonist), Mohaiemen
examines the charged processes of consolidation and
corrosion through which the "Third'Síorld" articu-
lated itself as an alternative to the Western and Eastern I
Blocs. In Athens, by contrast, the artist showedTripoli
Cøncelled,2017,afilm inspired by his father's experi-
ence of being trapped in Athens's Hellinikon Airport
without a passport for nine days in 1.977.In the film,
the man's life has been suspended for a decade, his fate
comparable to that of the refugees who lived in the

;sthe globe, others had to live with
Nazism, Fascism, and totalitarian-
stili very much embedded in struc-
[ife, and of course not only in Greece
:example, between 1945 and1.949,
alism became the official doctrine
ej SØróblewski developed a style of
hat aesthetically mediated the "has-
'et to come" in ways that shift our
Êguration in a time when the nature
was still taking shape. InExecution
)49, for instance (on view at EMST
m of Contemporary Art in Athens;
e artist's are in the Neue Galerie in
ski's painterly experiments turn the
rmenological territory in which the
etween life and death, between bio-
politics, speaks to the trauma of a
r still lingering in the present.
cntemporâry artists, too, retrospec-
fraught period in ways that broaden
Lr beyond Eurocentric notions of
th the relationship of Germany and
1g as ametâphor or mirror of North-
nore generally. Specificall¡ many
¡w ¡evisit moments when history
seemed open-ended-those fragile junctures in
which various futures were equally possible and plau-
sibie before they became concretized, especially in the
Íajectories of the emerging nation-states that would
go on to constitute the Global South. A standout in this
regard is Naeem Mohaiemen's riveting three-channel
video installationTwo Meetings and a Funeral,2017,
on view in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel,
which investigates the newly independent Bangladesht
navigation between two historic meetings-the
Algiers Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in
1973 an.dthe Lahore Summit of the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation in Pakistan a year later-tracing
the country's turn from the embrace of socialism to
solidarity with the Islamic world. !lith original film
footage and the narration of historian Vijay Prashad
(who also appears as a profagonist), Mohaiemen
examines the charged processes of consolidation and
corrosion through which the "Third \7orld" articu-
lated itself as an alternative to the'Síestern and Eastern
Biocs. In Athens, by contrast, the artist showed Triþoli
Cancelled,2017, a film inspired by his father's experi-
ence of being trapped in Athens's Hellinikon Airport
without â passport for nine days in 1977.In the film,
the man's life has been suspended for a decade, his fate
comparable to that of the refugees who lived in the
Opposite page, from left: V¡ew
of Documenta 14, 2017, Neue
Galer¡e, Kassel. From left: Erna
Rosenstein, Dawn (Poftra¡t of
the Artist's Father),1979; Erna
Rosenste¡n, Dawn (PorTra¡t of the
Atí¡st's Mother), 1979. Photo:
l\4athias Völzke. Edi Hila, Boulevard
1-6 (detail),2015, oil on canvas,
three panels. lnstãllatìon view,
ToMache, Kassel, 2017. Photo:
Michael Nast. Sokol Beqiri, Adonis,
2017, grafted oak tree, marble.
lnstallation view, Polltechnic,
Athens. Photo: Dimitr¡s Parth¡mos.
Right: Artur Zm¡jewsk¡, Realísrn,
2017, six-channel 16 mm
transferred to digital v¡deo, black-
and-white, silent, 12 minutes.
lnstallation view, Neue Hauptpost
(Neue Neue Galerie), Kassel.
Photo: l\4athias Völzke.
Far right: Bouchra Khallli, Ihe
Tempest Society, 2017, digital
v¡deo, color, sound, 60 minutes.
Nikos Kessanlis Exhibit¡on Hall,
Athens School of F¡ne Arts.
same, now disused, airport until their makeshift camp
was closed down by Greek police this past June.
Countless other artists likewise present works that
make visible the multiple namatives and subjectivities
that have been contained, repressed, or erased by the
dominant powers and the histories they tell. Among
my personal discoveries were Erna Rosenstein, whose
1979 paintings of her parents, murdered trying to flee
the Lwów Ghetto, are rendered in a haunting surrealist
figuration; and Edi Hila, whose muted paintings show
Albanian land- and cityscapes in a state of postsocialist
decay. A few works spoke directly to the immense
distances and vastly different contexts involved in the
exhibition's integration of the border into its formal
structure-for example, Sokol Beqiri's Adonis, 20L7,
for which the Kosovo-born artist grafted branches
from an oak tree in Kassel onto an Athenian oak at
Athens Polytechnic, a symbolic site where student
protesters were killed in great numbers after staging
an uprising against the right-wing government in L973.
The intention behind both the selection of artists
and the twin settings of a regional German city and
the Greek capital was clearly to push viewers beyond
formal appreciation or facile spectatorship in order to
call into question the conditions of knowledge that
frame our meeting with the other. Seeking to intro-
duce "a symmetrical situation of the encounter of
equals," the curatorial strategy of deploying the bor-
der as form encouraged a participatory engagement
that oscillated between empowering (we are all actors
contributing to the sceneþolis, we all have the right
to speak, we are all simultaneously strangers and
citizens) and authoritarian (a pressure to comply with
this methodology and an a priori discrediting of
"traditional" modes of knowledge). Along the wa¡
however, viewers were provided myriad guides: Oskar
Hansen's "Open Form," Artur Zmijewski's behavioral
experiments, Cornelius Cardew's incomplete scores,
and Bouchra Khalili's alternative historiographies, to
name but a few.
Despite seeming at a loss as to how to address its
elemental shortcoming-the unequal power relations
between Germany and Greece-this is the Documenta
I always wanted: difficult, demanding, experimental,
and unafraid to take risks. In our current necropoliti-
cal paradigm, as a border politics of inclusion and
exclusion dictates who may live and who must die,
the foremost struggle is to invent a new image of the
people who can move fluidly between borders, includ-
ing but not limited to those of demos and ethnos, the
administrative and the fictive, the national and the
supranational. If, as Balibar claims, our social space
-# 'dä
e
tr '' ,
*
ft
''l
,il'¡l
,l
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rrtrÍ$ fr .J
I
I
is constituted by a grid of multiple, differential bor-
ders-external but also internal-that discriminate
between "those who circulate capital" and "those
whom capital circulates," it is only fair to ask: What
can public (art) institutions, which are supported by
the traditional forms of cit¡ region, and state, do to
inhabit borders in critical ways or to propose new
ways of working, learning, and living together? In his
judicious deployment of a powerful tool of postwar
German cultural polic¡ whose own raison d'être was
the border of the Iron Curtain, Szymczyk asks the all-
important question: lflho owns Documenta? To put
it more srarkl¡ SØho has the right to the border?
"Ownership" implies having a share in controlling the
border, yet those who control borders will never be
those who risk their lives crossing them. \Øhile
Documenta cannot solve this conundrum, it can,
Szymczyk suggests, show a way to appropriate and
'reimagine borders in ways particular to our needs.
This is Documenta's humanist strain, which it simul- '
taneously asserts, challenges, and mourns by assimi-
lating the border into its form, as a site of both
maximum agency and utter impotence. !
Documenta 1.4 is on uiew in Kassel tbrough Septenber 17.
NUIT BANAI IS PROFESSOR OF CONTEMPORARY ART tN THE DEPAR'TMENT
.
]OFART HISTORYAlTHE
UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA, (SEE CONTRIBUTORS.)
SEPTEMBER 2017 305
THE GRAND TOUR
SUMMER OFTIIE SIIAMAilS
DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN ON DOCUMENTA I-4 AND THE 57TH VENICE BIENNALE
CONSTRUCTED FROM SCAFFOLDING on the Fried-
richsplatz in Kassel, Martha Minujín's Parthenon of
Books,201,7, is unfortunateiy just more of the usual
nonsense displayed atthat location at almost every
Documenta. The gigantic structure's columns are
wrapped in plastic cladding containing vast quanti-
ties of books that are or were forbidden somewhere
in the world, many of which are among the staples of
German households, including works by Goethe and
Brecht, and the diary ofAnne Frank. It turns out the
last ofthese was banned not by a rogue state but by
some American school districts (on account of its
sexuai content), but it really doesn't matter. The
same is true of other works dotted around the
Friedrichspl atz, among them Banu Cenneto$lu's
BEINGSAFEISSCARY, 2017,ín which the artist
replaced the Fridericianum's name with the ultra-
profound motto BErNG sAFE IS scARy, or Daniel
Knorr's Exþiration Mot)etnent, 2017, inwhich smoke
rises from the Zwehrenturm-no matter whether this
is a critique of the art market (which is like a factory,
according to the artist on Documenta's website), a
wave to Athens (artistic director Adam Szymczyk,
quoted in Der Spiegel), or a reminder of Auschwitz
(the artist again, quoted inthe Süddeutsche Zeitung).
It is high time we put behind us the unspeakable
Kassel tradition of making grandiose gestures on the
Friedrichspla tz, a practice notoriously beloved by
charismatic populists like Ai Weiwei and Joseph
Beuys. And as impressive as it is that this Documenta
was actually mounted on the same scale in two loca-
tions, the innumerable projects that offered nothing
31O ARTFORUM
besides a link between Athens and Kassel (riders riding
from Athens to Kassel, a tree in Athens grafted with
an oak from Kassel, famous buildings from Athens
cited in Kassel) not only quickly grew tiresome but
continue to clog the columns of press on the exhibition
with meaningless anecdotes-when this Documenta
has goals that are so much more important than that.
Given the spate of major art events happening this
year, it is not surprising that the curators of the largest
exhibitions are jostling to outdo one another with
their claims for art's importance. "Art is the ultimate
ground for reflection, individual expression, freedom,
and for fundamental questions," explains Christine
Macel, curator of the Venice Biennale: "The role, the
voice and the responsibility of the artist are more cru-
cial than ever. . . . [T]he world of tomorrow . . . is
often best intuited by artists than others [slc]." And
Katerina Koskina, director of the EMST I National
Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, one of
Documenta 14's primary partner institutions' adds
that art's mission is "to denounce, to transform, and
also to heal our tratmatizedworld." Gone are the
days, then, when art was free to be reckless' unfriendl¡
antisocial, aloof, aggressive, critical, intellectual, over-
blown-in a word, interesting. But it's easy to make
fun of pious sermonizing and highfalutin pontiÊca-
tion; more important is to consider which words are
deemed suitable for sermons at a particular historical
moment and whY.
This pathos of healing, the alarmism of the last bas-
tion! llhy should art in particular be able to help in a
situation where a host of devastating global develop-
ments has led to the rise of authoritarian politics and
para-fascist rule? After all, this has happened during
a time when art massively expanded its reach, produc-
tivit¡ and economic power. Rather than slowing
down these shifts, it may have exacerbated them.
How, then, caî art justify such megalomaniacal
claims about what it is able to accomplish?IüØho can
direct its course, and in whose name? For Szymczyk,
the goal of Documenta 14 ís "to question this very
supremacist, white and male, nationalist, colonialist
way of being and thinking" by attemptingto carry
"Indigenous practices and techniques of knowledge
from all over the world, via Athens, to Kassel and
elsewhere." And who is the enemy to be vanquished?
"A complex entanglement of political and military
powers that globally uphold the exploits of financial
capitalism while keeping intact the old and untenable
concept of a world comprised of sovereign nation-
states." There are thus two adversaries: de- and
a
reterritorializing capitalism. Szymczyk aspires to
"radical subiectivit[y]"-is that one of the indigenous
knowledge practices, or are they something else?-
and he would like to close or reduce the chasm
between "the rich and poor, the educated and unedu-
cated, the citizen and the stateless, whites and people
of color, men and women, the heteronormative an¿l
the LGBTQ communities." That's an awfully packed
to-do list, especiaiiy when you're also trying to put on
a giant art show in two parallel locations with very
different infrastructural capacities.
Those who come second on this list, on the right-
hand side of these chasms, have something in common,

l¡
't,t,.,
¡,"
,+ rr
:-
f
sEP 20û¡
Hans EÜkelboom, Photo Notes 7992-2017 (deta¡l), 270 ink'jet pfints'
each235/ax 19%". Stadtmuseum Kâssel. From Documenta 14.
but it is seldom if ever political. l7hile they all experi-
ence oppression or systemic disadvantage' they do not
even share similar forms of disadvantage, only the
abstract principle of it. The everyday work of the
politics of intersectionaiity involves hashing out,
again and again, that a shared politics and practice,
or what Jean-François Lyotard calls a "patchwork of
minorities," cannot be brought about by simply
enforcing an idealistic voluntarism-especially not
within the infrastructure of the visual arts in the First
\Øorld, where such politics automatically become
moralistic, an appeal to conscience. Such a moral
stand has something in common with the protection
'Western art,
historicaliy afforded to bourgeois
namel¡ that it is to some extent above the fray. But
when art seeks to give a voice to those who cannot
afford to be above the fra¡ who are pursuing identity
politics on the other side of the chasm, art kitschifies
these others into poiitical subjects without the poiitics
to match. They simpiy represent being disadvantaged
in the abstract and are thus pressed into an empty
universai but nonuniversalist function-which is prob-
lematic both because it makes their concrete griev-
ances irrelevant and because any ne% post-rü/estern
universalism is unfortunately still a work in progress.
An abstract idea of disadvantage also, of course, sits
uncomfortably with the tendency of identity politics
to focus on its single, concrete forms. Indeed' a group
in Athens that criticizes Documenta on its platform
312 ARTFORUM
Works from Beau Dick's series'Undersea Kingdom,'2016-17, twenty"one masks w¡th acrylic paint, red cedar, cedar bark, rubber, wool, faux fur,
horsehair, fauxfeathers, wire, copper, cloth, pigment, quartz crystal, abalone shell, leather, mìca. lnstallation vìew, Documenta Halle, Kassel, 2017
From Documenta 14. Photo: Roman Märtz.
"Documena" has extracted the political subject of
choice from Documenta's rhetoric, the "queer indige-
nous" person, and carried out various actions in which
its members perform as queer indigenous Greeks-
with the charge that Documenta is projecting the sen-
timental idea of the noble resisting subiect not only
onto non-\lestern cultures but onto Greece as well:
"'lle're not saying that's colonial," Fil Ieropoulos, one
of their representâtives, explained to me in conversa-
tion. "That's such a bad word, fuil of blood''$Øe say
Orientølist. That's not quite as bad; that's only the
second worst. "
Like Szymczyk's Documenta, Macel's Biennale
tries to redefine art as a transformative discipline, in
fields ranging from political intervention to magic.
Documenta takes a significantly more complex
approach to this cause than does the Biennale, how-
ever: The latter sorts topics into individual "trans-
pavilions," grouping works together within thematic
arrangements that are more or less transformative,
from "shamanisms" (more) to "traditions" (iess). At
Documenta, certain subjects have aiso been curated
together, but in less ob¡'ious ways so as to d¡aw out
the latent connections between them' On entering the
Stadtmuseum Kassel' for example, one encounters the
nearly two-hour-iong viðeo T h irty -T h r ee S ituøtions,
ZOtS, by Anna/Anða Dauðíková (who was for me one
of the great discoveries of this Documenta)' Cameras
glide iãw across surfaces, scanning the world around
l
l
them before pulling into focus printed forms that cate-
gorize thirty-three social situations connected with
female and lesbian sexuality in the former Soviet Union.
In a different part of the same building, one encounters
Hans Eijkelb oom's Photo Notes 1992-2017,which
also involves a ciassification system, but one based on
the everyday performance of the clothing choices of
several hundred city-dwellers all over the world' One
catches oneself smiling unawares at the charm of artis-
tic classifications in and of themselves: the sarcastic
triumph of form over randomness and obliviousness.
The works on view in one of the largest galleries at
the EMST in Athens, meanwhile, offered a case study
of two types of transformativity. Delicate masks by
the late Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations chief Beau
Dick were arranged in two circles, only one of which-
containing ritual objects to be used and later burned,
rather than arfworks as such-the viewer was allowed
to enter. Installed across from it was a binder filled
with documentation of Christopher D'Arcangelo's
anarchist actions agâinst New York's museums from
1965 to 1,979: the sole object in the room that one was
forbidden to photograph. The message was clear: Art
cannot transform; preservation through photography
has a reifying effect; the only thing that works is direct
(political or ritual) action. In other cases, it was harder
to see the point of the impliecl connections: How was
the viewer to link Olu Oguibe's sober and elegant
associative archival installation addressing the Biafra
 t tJ^, ç ìr iT
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Above: Ayrson HeÉclito, O sacud¡mento da casa da toffe (The Shaking of the Tower House), 2015, HD video,
color, sound, 8 minutes 44 seconds. Arsenale, Venice, From the 57th Venice Biennale.

R¡ght: Vlew of Olafur El¡asson's Gree, light-an artístic wotkshop,2OL6-, Qentral Pavilion, Venice, 2017
From the 57th Venice Biennale. Photo: Chandra click.

Gone are the days when art was free to be reckless, unfriendly, antisocial,aÍool,
aggressive, critícal,intellectual, overblown-in a word, interesting.
es 'Undersea Kingdom," 2016-17, twenty-one masks w¡th acrylic pa¡nt, red cedar, cedar þark, rubþer, wool, faux fur,
'e, copper, cloth, pigment, quartz crystal, aþalone shell, leather, m¡ca. ¡nstallation view, Documenta Halle, Kassel, 2017
: Roman Mårtz.

:xtracted the political subject of them before pulling into focus printed forms that cate- conflict in late-1960s Nigeria, BiafrøTime Capsule, ing Ayrson Heráclito's videos O sacudimento da casa forms of action or interaction, this does violence to
enta's rhetoric, the "queer indige- gorize thirty-three social situations connected with 2017, with the ritually connoted masks of the Cam- da torre (The Shaking of the Tower House) and O what is put on view-b¡ for example, Orientalizing
¡rried out various actions in whrch . female and lesbian sexuality in the former Soviet Union. bodian artist Khvay Samnang in Preah Kunlong (The søcudimento da møison des esclaues ern Gorée (The it or exposing it to voyeurism. Hence what transgres-
m as queer indigenous Greeks- In a different part of the same building, one encounters Way of the Spirit), 201.7? Moreover, Samnang, who Shaking of the Slave House in Gorée), both 2015, sive, interventionist art needs, much more urgently
:Documenta is projecting the sen- Hans Ei j kelb o om's P h o t o N o te s 1. 9 9 2-2 0 1 7, wbich has been exhibiting all over the world for a number of which were projected across from each other. In them, than high-modernist art did, is a critical reflection on
: noble resisting subject not only also involves a classification system, but one based on years and works in many genres) is hardly the native we see how a group of protagonists dressed in white its mediation ) as art, that goes beyond the mediation
:ultures but onto Greece as well: the everyday performance of the clothing choices of witness of a religious practice, as the context of other uses leaves and twigs as broom-like instruments to of the projects and works themselves, encompassing
rat's colonial," Fii leropoulos, one several hundred city-dwellers all over the world. One (cleanse"-translated
para.magical objects displayed near his work might in the English rendering of a concept of the medium specificity of performances,
ves, explained to me in conversa- catches oneself smiling unawares at the charm of artis- suggest: Cecilia Vicuña's Quipu Wonzb (Tbe Story of their titles as "shaking"-¡¡¡¡6 of the most horrific interventions, and actions that are thought to take
L bad word, full of blood.'\ùle say tic classifications in and of themselves: the sarcastic th e Red Th r e ad, Ath ens), 201.7, for example, which places of the transatlantic slave trade, one in Bahia, place outside any medium.
not quite as bad; that's only the triumph of form over randomness and obliviousness. is meant to evoke, simultaneousl¡ indigenous Latin Braz1l, and the other on Gorée Island, off the coast of In this regard, bringing Documenta to Athens
The works on view in one of the largest galleries at American knotted-string writing, Andean mother god- Senegal. Rather than simply being an abstract non- had the effect of turning the city into a stage or back-
s Documenta, Macel's Biennale the EMST in Athens, meanwhile, offered a case study desses, Greek maritime mytholog¡ and menstrual \Øestern practice, "magic" is here historicaily specific. drop that we know ail too weli from biennials and
as a transformative discipline, in of two types of transformativity. Delicate masks by blood. From here, the exhibition took off on a wild These two exhibitions suggested a growing consen- Manifestas. No matter how well intentioned such
political intervention to magic. the late Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations chief Beau ride through a constellation of historical ethnographic sus about art being a transformative discipline, and endeavo¡s are, they somehow refuse to understand that
a significantly more complex Dick were arranged in two circles, only one of which- material of all kinds, both as source and as subject, the undialectical negation of autonomy it is often pre- exhibiting a city itself-its daily routines, its historical
use than does the Biennale, how- containing ritual objects to be used and later burned, ultimately leading to an installation by McDermott sumed to entaii. llhether practiced in the name of architecture, but above all its contemporary iife-
'ts topics into individual "trans- rather than arfworks as such-the viewer was allowed authenticit¡ incursion, intervention, biographism,
Ec McGough and Piotr Uklaiski (The Greek'Wøy, means reifying and commodifying it into a movie set.
g works together within thematic to enter. Installed across from it was a binder filled 2017 ) that simplistically and problematicaliy addresses or-as particularly evident in the exhibitionson view The invisible demarcation line between artwork and
are more or less transformative, with documentation of Christopher D'Arcangelo's German fascism, its philhellenism, and the implicit this summer-non-\(/estern cultures, this approach spectator implicit in any art exhibition is nothing to be
'' (more) to "traditions" (less). At anarchist actions against New York's museums from reaction formation behind the homophobia of the tends to overlook the fact that any non- or anti- trifled with; it does not disappear when one leaves the
-lüestern
r subjects have also been curated 1965 to 1979: the sole object in the room that one was Nazis. tffhat, if an¡ is the connection to institutional, supposedly transgressive action that white cube. In this sense, Kassel and Venice have long
¡ obvious wâys so as to draw out forbidden to photograph. The message was clear: Art takes place within art institutions (or indeed any- since become city-size white cubes. Repeated attempts
ethnography here?
ns between them. On entering the cannot transform; preservation through photography In Venice, by contrast, topics and techniques of the where that is acclimated to the language-game of art to tease a degree of political or historical concreteness
I, for example, one encounters the has a reifying effect; the only thing that works is direct transformative are not even placed in tension with or accustomed to hosting artistic "statements") oper- out ofVenetian opulence or the dreariness ofKassel
rg video Tbirty-Three Situations, (political or ritual) action. In other cases, it was harder each other; associated concepts simply replace the ates in a much more devastating way to stabilize the have all failed; today both cities are, if in dissimilar
r Dauðíková (who was for me one to see the point of the implied connections: How was good, the true, and the beautiful in the artistic piety conventions of an accepted status quo. If something ways, something like universal convention centers. In
ries of this Documenta). Cameras the viewer to link Olu Oguibe's sober and elegant of the kindergarten slogan "Viva Arte Viva. " But here, is exhibited under the pretense (or in the sincere belief) Athens, on the other hand, Documenta continued the
faces, scanning the world around associative archival installation addressing the Biafra too' there are also a number of good artlvorks' includ- that the act of exhibition is no different from direct established practice of using urban contingencies and

SEPTEMBER 2077 3L3


;nD¡dÀd
oF}ç,åfr'
dÈdt}lÁ Ë1
coincidences for temporary exhibitions and interven-
tions, which has been a popular curatorial move for
.sØhile
twenty yeârs now. it always looks interesting,
it, too, turns the city into a showroom or a stage set,
albeit of a slightly different kind.
But what is worse than exhibiting cities is exhibiting
people who are not performers, or doing so without
reflecting on the medium in which one is causing them
to appear. The worst offender in this regard is Olafur
Eliasson's installation in one of the first galleries of the
Central Pavilion in Venice, where actual refugees work
on actual design objects-a kind of post-racist ethno-
logical exposition or human zoo of civil society. After
moving through Philippe Parreno's eerie installation
of pure light and electromagnetism, which is over-
whelming in its asceticism, and an impressive show of
Raymond Hains's littie-known post-décollage work,
one gets a particuiarly appalling second look at the
laboring refugees from an elevated vantage point.
This workplace was undoubtedly created with the
best intentions, but it is completely lacking in any feel-
ing for the real effect of the act of exhibition and how
putting peopie on display turns their absorption in
their work, and their liveness itself, into an object of
voyeurism. This problem does not go away if you
believe that you are not exhibiting them because you
are employing them-at ieast not if this act of employ-
ment is attributecl to the artist Olafur Eliasson.
On this very point, assistance may be forthcoming
from Documenta. Another of its themes, again emerg-
ing through sometimes latent, sometimes explicit,
connections between various objects and events, is a
cu¡atorial attempt to formulate an inventory of pre-
cisely such urgently necessary media theories of the
314 ARÍFORU¡/
la
.===
1-'
ctockwise, from left: works by Raymond Hains, 1964-2001, mixed med¡a. lnstallation view,
central pavilion, venice,2O!7. From the 57th Venice Biennale- PhotÔ: Francesco Galli.
Detail of cornel¡us cafdew's lreat¡se score, 1967. Neue Galerie, Kassel. From Documenta
14.
ru Agnes Denes, lsometric Systems in lsotrop¡c Spae*Map Proiections: The Snaí|, !978, in'\
oà paper and Mylar,20 x 30". Nikos Kessanlis Exh¡bition Hall, Athens school of Fine
Arts'
From Documenta 14. KaderAttia, Naftativevíb'ations,2017, m¡xed media. lnstallation view,
Afsenale, venice. From the 57th Venice Biennale. Photo: ltalo Rondinella. Anne lmhof, Fausf,
2017. Performance view, German pavilion, Venice, May Lt' 2Ol7 From the 57th Venice
'.Þu:,ffi B¡ennale. Photo: Nadine Fraczkowski.
unmediated and make them productive. After all,
direct and interventionist art, art in search of imme-
diac¡ is nothing new. One of Documenta's most
important insights is that it could use the knowledge
that has long since been gained in this area. There is a
lot to be learned from the model of the score in the
legacies of Fluxus and experimental music, for example,
as represented here by composers such as Cornelius
Cardew and those who worked with him on the social
and musical experiment of the Scratch Orchestra.
Cardew's graphic scores are among many examples
of the culture of instructions and notation in experi-
mental music in the exhibition, which also includes
material by and about Pauline Oliveros, Jani Christou,
Alvin Lucier, and others-in addition to "event scores"
devised tn 1968 by Anna and Lawrence Halprin' as
well as documentation of various proiects along
related lines by the Chiiean artlarchitecture group
Ciudad Abierta. Agnes Denes's conceptual prints and
drawings and Katalin Ladik's circuits also offer ways
of examining the relationship between drawing,
recording, and score. Sculptures by Nevin Alada[
and Guillermo Galindo that function like musical
instruments are relevant to these ideas too, as âre the
fantastic percussive drawings of the late Lahore,
Pakistan-based artist Lala Rukh, which seem to
denote tabla patterns' This rich, predominantly his-
torical, and meticulously reconstructed storehouse of
material Íor a practical media theory of unmediatecl
performance- and time-based, "direct" and interven-
¡ionist arts could help repudiate the ideology whereby
so many interventionisms and activisms situate their
practices outside the use of media' tsut it has not yet
found application in contemporary art'
 Left: Sharon Lockhart' ¿ittfe
Review,2Ot7, HD v¡deo' color'
sound,27 minutes 17 seconds.
Polish pav¡l¡on, Ven¡ce. From the
F----l= 57th Ven¡ce B¡ennale.

Right: Kader Attia, Narative

Vtbratíons, 2077, mixed media.
4, lnstallation v¡ew, Arsenale, Venice
From the 57th Ven¡ce B¡ennale.
Photo: Italo Rond¡nella.
Clockwise, from left: Works by Raymond Ha¡ns,1964-2001, mixed med¡a. lnstallation view,
central Pavilion, Venice,2O!7. From the 57th Venice B¡ennale' Photo: Francesco Galli.
Detail of Cornelius Cardew's lreaflse score, 1967. Neue Galerie, Kassel. From Documenta 14.
Agnes Denes, ,sometr¡c Systems tn ,sottop¡c Space-Map Prciectlons: The Snair, 1978, ink
on paper and Mylar, 20 x 30". Nikos Kessanl¡s Exhib¡tion Hall, Athens School of F¡ne Arts.
From Documenta 14. Kader Attia, Naffatlve Vibrctlons,2O!7, mixed media. Installation v¡ew,
Arsenale, Venice. From the 57th Ven¡ce Biennale. Photo: ltalo Rondinella. Anne lmhof, Faust,
2otT.Perlormance v¡ew, German pavil¡on, Venice, May Lt,2OL7. From the 57th Venice
Biennale. Photo: Nadine Fiaczkowski.

One only learns from an exhibition in a transformative

sense if one also lets oneself be exhibited by it.

make them productive. After all,
ntionist art, art in search of imme-
new One of Documenta's most
s is that it couid use the knowledge
: been gained in this area. There is a
from the model of the score in the
rnd experimental music, for example,
re by composers such as Cornelius
who worked with him on the social
:riment of the Scratch Orchestra.
scores are among many examples
rstructions and notation in experi-
he exhibition, which aiso includes
rout Pauline Oliveros, Jani Christou,
rthers-in addition to "event scores"
,y Anna and Lawrence Halprin, as
Itation of various projects along
he Chiiean artlarchitecture group
rgnes Denes's conceptual prints and
alin Ladik's circuits also offer ways
: relationship between drawing,
:ore. Sculptures by Nevin Alada!
ialindo that function iike musical
:levant to these ideas too, as are the
;ive drawings of the late Lahore,
artist Lala Rukh, which seem to
:rns. This rich, predominantly his-
,rlously reconstructed storehouse
cticai media theory of unmediated
time-based, "direct" and interven-
reip repudiate the ideoiogy whereby
:ionisms and activisms situate their
the use of media. But it has not yet
Or perhaps it has. For even in Venice, where these
ideas seem to be present more by accident, there are
some wonderful works on the notation, anticipation,
and reconstruction of practices that are both time-
based and transgressive. Chief among them is Kader
Attia's Nørratiue Vibrations, 201.7 , a complex and
inspiring installation on the relationship between voice,
gender, and gender attribution, which repeatedly moves
from sober, scientific disquisition to high drama. On
screens set âmong album-cover decorations, primarily
from Turkish and Egyptian records, musicologists and
ethnomusicologists offer an introduction to the subject.
Then, in the theatrical darkness of the work's central
room, couscous grains vibrate to the voices of great
cis- or transgender female Arabic singers, arranging
themselves into seemingly neutral, objective patterns.
In a work by Anri Sala, All of aTremble (Encounter I),
2016,two stamps for printing wallpaper, one geometric
and the other chaotic, double up as a music box: They
are mounted on a wooden cylinder and plucked by a
steel comb. And in Marcos,4vila Forero's video Atrato,
201.4,wewatch a group of Afro-Colombian percus-
sionists reconstruct the traditional artistic and ritual
skill of water percussion, learning from Congolese
musicians since the practice has largely been lost in
Colombia. Here, movement, sound, collaboration,
and coordination turn into both material and medium.
of How nonprofessional performers can be included
in exhibitions without being simply put on display is
also demonstrated in many other works at the
Biennale. At the South African pavilion, Candice
Breitz's collection of self-representations by refugees
in videos benefits enormously from the fact that its
which Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin perform
statements from the videos. Anne Imhof's work at the
German pavilion includes the brilliant intervention of
a glass floor roughly three feet high that divides the
space into aboveground and underground areas.
These, in turn, become the stage set for a performance
by an ensemble of professionai young posers of dark
moods and elegant (auto-)aggressiveness. Perhaps
most compelling of all, however, is the video in the
Polish pavilion featuring five young women with
whom Sharon Lockhart worked for several years in a
youth-education center in the Polish countryside.
Three sequences thematize exceptional distortions of
time and duration as allegories of adolescent experi-
ence: an energetic movement in extreme slow motion,
â repetitive performance of slowed-down, minimal
gestures, and a hyperaestheticized exploration of a
piano solo-not as music, non-music, or anti-music,
but as something else entirely.
Lockhart associates her works with the theory and
practice of Polish educator Janusz Korczak, an orphan-
age director in IùØarsaw who died in the Treblinka
concentration camp. He could easily take his place
among the many great pedagogues of the early and
mid-twentieth century who play a role at Documenta,
including Oskar Hansen, Asja Lãcis, and Anna Halprin.
rÙüith all these interesting
teachers, however, one won-
ders what the point was of the fashionable watchword
unlearning,which also came up at Documenta-as if
there were something to be said against learning,
simply because there is almost always something to
be said against what is taught. At the same time, the
idea of "Learning from Athens," which Documenta
one only learns from an exhibition in a transformative
sense if one also lets oneself be exhibited by it. As far
as I can see, that rarely happened. Or if it did, then in
a rather convoluted fashion: Documenta's traditional
center, the Fridericianum, has been given over to the
collection of the EMST. The experience of a national
collection that is largely unknown in Germany but
that reproduces every known phase of postwar
'Western
art draws attention to the learned contexts
that Vestern art viewers carry around with them
when they look at contemporary art ("Is this the
Greek Twombly? Is that the Greek Tàpies?"). This is
how unlearning can take place in the good sense.
There is no room for exoticism; instead, the visitor's
own lùlestern gaze becomes evident, as they are shown
things they know and yet don't know.
Otherwise, however, with marble as the omni-
present decorative element, the relationship to Athens
is dominated by the familiar German philhellenism,
which stretches from Hölderlin through Heidegger to
the German hippies-and which, of course, very much
included the Nazis. It doesn't help that there are no
Germans at all among the exhibition's curators. In the
,work on view ìn Kassel, this problematic philheilenism
is well documented, albeit as a historical phenome-
non. Unfortunatel¡ in the art worldt enthusiasm for
a somehow revolutionar¡ queer, "universally indige-
nous" person as a new political subject, something ofl
its exoticizing returns. !
Docttmenta L4 is on uieø in Kassel through Septenber 17; tbe 57th Venìce
Biennale is on uieu through Nouember 26.
DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN IS A BERLIN-BASED CRITIC AND A PROFESSOR
OFIHEORY PRACTICF, ANN CQMIVII INICATION OF CONTEMPORARY ART AT
THE AKADEIVIIE DER BILDENDEN KÜNSTE IN VIENNA.

. in contemporary art. authenticism is undercut by an interposed layer in also proclaimed as a slogan, overlooks the fact that Trønslated from German by
!ames Gussen.

SEPTEMBER 2OT7 3T5


BUCHLOHITHEGRAND ?OUR coztinued from page289
NOTES
My title actually cites the title of a work by Lawrence Weiner in bomage, so
to speak, since bis uorþ høs consistently, ønd ouer nøny years, chøllenged
and furtltered our thinÞing about the nature and functions of sculpture in
the þlesent,
L. Rosalind Krauss, "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," October 8 (spring
1979\:33.
2. The comparison set of sculptural installations deploying live animals is too
large to introduce here, but even the shortest reference would yield a rather
astonishing distinction for the animal heraldry in Imhof's proiects. The artist
used hunting falcons in her three-part opera A¿gsr, which was presented in
Basel, Berlin, and Mont¡eal in 2016-rather masculinist if not proto-fascist
animals in comparison, for example, with Jannis Kounellis's parrot sitting on
its perch in an untitled sculpture in 1967. Or, closer to home, even Beuyst
interâctions with a tràined coyote in his notorious installation I liþe America
ønd America liþes me,l974,attheF.eté Block Gallery in New York seem col-
laborative and cognizant of the animal's interactions when considered next to
lmhof's display of incarcerated military-assâult wâtchdogs.
3. Should it really be necessary to explain the fundamental differeqces between
Äcconci's genius in Seedbed a¡dlmhof's subjection of her cohort of perform-
ing groupies, one might begin by underlining the fact that, in the former,
Acconci subjected himself to invisibility within the sculpture's subte¡¡anean
space, thereby further discomfiting scopically deprived spectators by exposing
them to their own projections and speculations concerning the origin of the
artist's primal noises, erupting underground. By contrast, Imhof's zombie
actors were helplessly subjected to the cell-phone commands of the artist and
the prurience of the spectato¡s above. One might also remember that the pub-
lic exposure of extremely private situations has other precursors, such as Chris
Bwden's Doomed, performed in 1975. The a¡tist exhibited himself lying in
complete stillness under a sheet of glass for the duration of his exhibition, once
again taking it on himself (rather than forcing others) to expose the intimacy of
his daily (non)life to public suneillance. Not surprisingl¡ the trajectory leading
to Imhof's own spectactularized public exposur€ of living human creatures
under glass can be traced instead to the actress Tilda Swinton, who contributed
a sensationalized version of public slumbei in a glass cof6n as part of Cornelia
Parke¡'s 1995 ¡et¡ospective at London's Serpentine Gallery.Later,in2013-14,
Swinton repeated ihe "performance" to great âcclâim ât the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, tantalizing viewers with the promise to fulfill their deepest
wishes regarding the ultimate specular fetishization: the star as live corpse.
4. After all, the work initially claimed to be an installation that would run fo¡
the duration o{ the Biennale, in the manner of a sculptural environment fo¡
performances, but it actually turned out to be a limited spectacle for the privi-
leged members of the inte¡national a¡t world who could attend the cabaret
during the first three days of the preview. Afterward, the full performance, like
any repertory opera, was relegated to about a dozen performances to be
staged throughout the summer until the end of the Biennale in Novembe¡
(even though limited versions take place every day). These temporal limita-
tions would not be cause for objection were it not for lmhof's claims to have
synthesized all the disciplinary and discursive borders that had previously
separâted sculpture from architecture, objects from spaces, performers from
spectators and from sculptural structures, and to have established the param-
eters of a new a¡tistic medium and practice: the successful synthesis of a new
Wagnerian C esamt hun stwe r þ,
5. In this case, the mutual infanration of both spheres (the fashion and art
industries) seems to have come to fruition, since Douglas is now also one of
Balenciaga's top models, while Imhof almost constanlly presented herself in
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public during the Biennale sporting a Balenciaga baseball cap. If only we could
return to Beuys's fucked-up fedora,
6. B¡adford's irreverent entry even succeeded in provokine the p¡otest of
Trumpt newly appointed ambassador to ltaly, whoïas obligãd to i^"ug.,rate
the artist's overtly distirrbing display.
7, Bradford himself has stated, "l sometimes wish my wo¡k weren't so au¡o-
biographical. But it is." Quoted in Katy Sìegel, ,,Biography of a painting,,' in
Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day, ed.. Katy Siegel and Christopher
Bedford, exh. cat. (New York: Gregory R. Mìller, 2017), 48.
8. However, the¡e was an earlier teception of this lineage, of which the exhibi-
tion-catalogue authors seem to have been unawar€. See, for example, my
extensive discussion o1 décollage ín my essay "Formalism and Hisroricitf" in
Europe in the Seuenties: Aspects of Receflt Art, ed. Anne Rorimer (Chicago:
Art Institute of Chicago,1,977),83-l 1 1; and my later essay "From Detail to
Fragment: Décollage Afficbiste," it October 56, "High/Low: Art and Mass
Culture" (Spring I 99 I ): 98-i i0.
9. Such a project seems to attempt to go beyond mere token commitmetts to
proletarian audiences, aiming to define standards altogether different from
what an aesthetic of participation and site specificity might have initially imag-
ined, in their efforts to endow the discipline of oblect and monument produc-
tion with the dimensions that Beuys once defined as "social sculpture. "
Suspended beween theScylla of art's function as the speculative ìnvestment of
global surplus value (and occasional philanthropic generosity) and the
Charybdis of artt extremely limited socìal and political efficacy-the paradox
of the agitprop fusion of privileged artistic âgency, on the one hand, and dis-
possessed audiences, on the other-Bradford's separation of these cont¡adic-
tory spheres poses one contemporâry answer to the inevitable fracturing of
sculpture's material and procedural homogeneity,
10. Queried about the role of the imaginary in his work, Huyghe answersr "As
a stance on the world, a war between different senses of the imaginary. It is
necessary and wild. With his visual tool, Daniel Buren raises for discussion the
functions of space and gives back its physicalit¡ its spatiality. He oPens it ro
itself-that's what it is, just in a different way." See Marie-FranceRaÍael, Pierre
Huyghe: On Site, trans. John Beeson (Cologne: Iùlalther König, 2013), 58.
11. George Baker, "An Interview with Pierre Huyghe," October'l'10 (Ãutumn
2004):82.
12. tbid., 104.
13. Confronting the list of possible comparisons-even if briefly-might not
only put the seeming eccentricity of Huyghe's "animal husbandry" in context
but allow us to recognize the specific differences he develops in the deploy-
ment of these live, performative, sculptural, yet nonhumân complements:
Among these are Richard Serra's exhibition of a live chicken and pigs at his
first solo exhibition in Rome at Gallèria La Salita rn1966iHaacke's Liue
Airþorne System,'1.968; what is possibly the most notorious ol works ìncorpo-
rating live animals, Kounellis's exhibition " Senza Titolo (12 Caualli)"
(Untitled [12 Horses]) at Fabio Sargentini's Galleria UAttico in Rome in 1969;
and, more recentl¡ Bruce Nauman's M aqþ¡ng the Studio I (Fat Cbance Jobn
Cage),2001,which recorded the nightly invasion and movements ofdesert
¡ats in Nauman's ¡ural studio, similarly posing an inherent critique of Cage's
historical optimism.
14. Pierre Huyghe in conversation with Kolja Reichert, " Was sich der Kontrolle
entzieht," Frankfurter Allgemeine SonnttgszeitunS, Jvrc 1.L,20t7 55.
' November, December,.January February, lvarch, Apr¡|, May, and Summer (June) for $50.00
15. A history of sculpture as a librar¡ or the library as an antimonumental
architecture of spectatorial and readerly agenc¡ would have to begin with the
workers' reading room of Aleksandr Rodchenko's Workers' Club tnParis ít
1925 and could lead up to mâny examples in the recent past, from Thomas
I NEW ARTTSTS I CLASSROOM I NEWS I DIRECTORY
Hirschhorn's li b ra r ies in the B ataille Monument itKassel, 2002, or his 24H
Foucaub it Pais,2004, to the Martht Rosler Librøry in New York
and
Frankfurt in 2006.
of the first historians to have foregrounded that not only
1 6. Götz Aly rvas one
violent racism but also extleme folms of criminal greed motivated the average
German population of the 1930s in its destruction ofJewish households
businesses. See, for example, his chaptel "Die Nutzniesser des Mordens,"
Ãlv. Yolþ ohrc Mitte (Frankfurr: S. Fischer; 2015), 84-115; and, more
and
it
gener-
NOTEL
ally,his Hitlcrs Volþsstaat: Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus
(Frankfurt: S Fischer' 2005).
AMERICI
Caption acknowledgments
P aíe S and page L75: .lames Rosenquist, Hey¡ Let's Go for a Ride'
1961 @ VG CHELSEA NEW
B¡ld-Kunst, Bonn. Page 5, pages 320-321, and pages 322-323: AII works þy
Walker Evans: @ Walker Evans Arch¡ve, The l\4etropolitan Museum of Art.
page 80: Vito Acco^ci, Bt¡ndfotded catchinÉ, !97O' @ Vìto Acconci/Art¡sts
Rights society (ARS), New York. Page 93: Howard Hodgk¡n , ln the Black l<¡tchen'
198¿-90. O Howard Hodgkin. Page 159: François Morellet, Rêpart¡t¡on a\éa-
to¡re de 4O.OOO carrés su¡vant les chíffrcs pa¡rs et ¡mpa¡rs et d'un annua¡re de
téléphone (5Oo/o bteu nuit,500,6 noh) (Random Distribut¡on of 40,000 Squares
Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory [507o Night Blue'
50% Blackl), 1961. @ Artist Rights society (ARS), New York/ADAGB Paris.
PaEe 164: Two untitled Wallace Berman works, 1958- @ Estate of Wâllâce
Berman and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles. Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu (The Man
Who Eats lvlan), 1928. @ Tarsila do Amaral Licenciamentos. Page 167: Stuart
A. Weiner, So/er¡ Sketchíné at His Desk, Cosantí, ca. 1960. @ The Weiner Estate'
Collection of the Cosant¡ Foundation. Page 168: Jasper J ohns, Pa¡ntinÉ w¡th
Two Balls, 1960. @ Jasper Johns/vAGA, New York/DAcs, London Page 176:
Louise Nevelson, untitled, 1970. @ Louise Nevelson/B¡ldupphovsrått. Page 289
and page 295: l\4ariâ Eichhorn, Unlawfully acquíred booksfrom Jew¡sh owner-
ship,2o!7 . @ Arrists Rights soc¡ety (ARS), New Yorklvc B¡ld-Kunst' Bonn-
Page 292: Works from Synnøve Persen's ser¡es "Sãmi Rag Project"' 1977-.
g¡enníal,1966.
@ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Þage 298: Raymond Ha¡ns, 33rd Venice
@ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorklADAGq Paris. Page 311: 0aniel Knorl
Expírat¡on Movement, 2017. @ Artists Rights Society (ARS)' New Yorklvc Bild-
Kunst, Bonn. Page 314: Works by Raymond Ha¡ns, 1964-2001' @ Artists
Rights Soc¡ety (ARS), New YorklADAGe Paris.
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