Here is my final update, it's time for a holiday.

So for my last days of Documenta I saw the remaining shows at the other venues.

The Neuie Gallery, like the Fridericianum is a museum building and the museum method of display is carried through to this venue. Many of the artists that I saw on the Fridericianum show reappear here with similar works, so obvious visual connections are made to the work on the other show.
The artists are around today taking interviews from hundreds of journalists, as I am not really familiar with much of the work on the show I decide not to confront the artists with any questions. Instead I listen in on the other interviews going on.

Martha Rossler is having an interview in the bright pink room where her work is hanging. I have a moment of ‘Oh my God it’s Martha Rossler,” but it soon passes quickly since all the artists are here. The video that she is showing looks amazing in salmon room. The colour of this film piece is only emphasised by the colour of the room.
It seems that every room is a different colour in this space, very different to the spaces I am used to experiencing art. The blue stairwell works well for Sakarin Krue-on, with his delicate clay drawings on the walls, he also has a large rice paddy at the Schloss that I am looking forward to.



Churchil Madikida’s work is on this show; I overheard someone saying that “it doesn’t make the work any better because it is on Documenta”. I had seen most of the work before, and no, the work didn’t look any better on Documenta, that is not to say I didn’t enjoy the work. I found the installation more interesting than the video pieces, the kitsch funeral paraphernalia worked well in the red room that it was displayed. The room was warmer than the other rooms and smelt of candle wax.

Nedko Solakov;s work was a real treat after all the very serious, quasi-political works on the shows I’ve seen on Documenta. His room full of mini paintings drawed me in and I spent some time with the piece, when there is so much work to get through one can often get into the ‘biennale pace’ of viewing works.

After having a thorough look at the show, I moved on to the aue Pavilion and Documenta halle. As I approached I was quite shocked at the venue, it is a completely prefabricated structure in the middle of a field opposite the very beautiful Orangerie. It is hideous, inside there are partition boards to create smaller exhibition spaces it looks like a trade fair! The space is very big and since it is not a building it is very difficult to negotiate. The front section is well curated, but as I moved through I felt that I was becoming distracted and it was difficult to be held by any work for very long.

Romuald Hazoumé, had a large installation in the middle of the aue Pavillion, this area felt like a bit like Documenta’s own little African pavilion, Guy Tillim was in this section too. The lumping together of the very ‘African’ looking work felt problematic, I don’t think that is a justifiable curatorial link. It was also strange how Hazoumé was taking interviews in full ‘African’ garb while when we saw him later at Lolita bar he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a hoody. Exoticism still is a seller in the artworld it seems.



Saâdane Afif’s work was lovely, I had never come across his work before but I heard that he is quite a ‘rockstar’ in France and this piece had previously been show .The work was an installation of several sexy black guitars and amps which were connected to a program which ‘played’ various chords at intervals. No image can really do this work justice since experiencing the work relies on being in the space and experiencing the sound element. This was definitely the highlight of the Aue pavilion for me., oh, and seeing Hans Ulrich Obrist, I managed to get a Papparazzo style shot, I thought it would be appropriate for Artheat.




The documenta Halle is also a strange exhibition venue it hosts the press centre and a large coffee shop, so it is always full of people milling around. The main exhibition hall crammed quite a few works into a relatively small floor area with no partitions. Here is where Peter Friedl’s giraffe was displayed; it was not all that impressive. The poor taxidermied giraffe was very mangy and reminded me of the scruffy quagga in the South African museum.
A very interesting work was in the space just off from the Giraffe, it really played with my eyes when I saw it. First the viewer is faced with a black truck in a black room, so since see the piece is in very low light the sculptural form changes, it is somehow flattened. After you pass the truck you walk into a small room with windows that look out, except the artist has covered the windows with orange foil so the whole room is filled with orange light. There is a black radio in the room, the very minimal installation makes you feel like you are in very flat painting or looking through a sight of a gun ,very beautiful optical play.



A conversation with a French critic gave me some insight in to previous Documentas as compared to this one. He went on to draw analogies to Cathryn David’s Documenta which was subtitled Politics/Poetics. This subtitle shows similarities to the way this Documenta has approached the political aspect of the show. The show has not really set out to be a platform for the political art of today, however the choice of many of the artists seem to show a political bias. They have not stood on any toes here, everything is über pc. The work has not been political in a direct way, rather the political concerns are expressed lyrically.



I am still not sure what to make of the show, while I feel it aimed to inspire more thoughtful viewing it all feels a little forced, I think it needs more time to settle.

The merging of contemporary works with older works was taken one step further in the venue at the schloss Wilhelmshöhe here contemporary pieces were inserted into their permanent collection. The collection ranged from Persian miniatures to Rubens paintings, I felt that this didn’t do much justice to the older works or the contemporary ones for that matter.





The interplay between the contemporary and the older works happened more naturally for me by just being in Kassel and observing the remains of previous Documentas that one comes across. Like finding one of the 7000 trees that Joseph Beuys planted or the Earth kilometre which caused much controversy at the time of it’s installation. This for me was a more subtle and powerful reflection on the past rather than slapping a contemporary painting next to an old master.




It has become very clear to me that experiencing works on Documenta becomes about the experience of the exhibition as a whole ;the show is about Documenta as a particular platform for contemporary art . It however does not necessarily critique or challenge the platform even though Ruth Noack , at the press conference, set out to explain how Documenta as a platform was in flux.

Four days was more than enough time to spend at Documenta, this way I managed to go back and relook at the venues, but now it was time to move on to Munster. I arrived in Munster and immediately realised that this picturesque little town and makes for a perfect backdrop for public sculpture. Unlike all the shows the shows I’ve seen so far there has been no attempt to formalise at curatorial premise. The works are spread out across the little town and so are viewed as individual works as opposed to a whole. The Sculpure Projects can only really be navigated with the help of an almost indecipherable map, so usually it helps just to follow arty looking people and you’re sure to stumble upon a work. However since contemporary art can take on many forms any slightly curious object is carefully re-examined to make sure you are not missing out. Besides the current works Munster is filled with public works from the last 30 years so I had the opportunity to stumble across works by Richard Serra, Daniel Buren, Rachel Whiteread and many others.



Susan Philipsz’s sound installation was my favourite work on the circuit, it was installed under a bridge at Lake Aa. The viewer passed under the bridge while Philipsz’s voice surrounded the viewer. Her voice emanated from two sets of speakers installed on either sound of the lake, and the voices seemed to sing to each other. Her voice along with the echoeing atmosphere created by the water and the concrete bridge evoked images of the lady of the lake. It gave me goosebumps.

Mark Wallinger had a piece in Munster that was very difficult to locate if one was not informed. Wallinger demarcated a circular perimeter in an area of Munster with very fine line. This almost imperceptible piece was almost lost if not for the large plaque which marked the centre of Wallinger’s perimeter. The fine line forced the viewer to look up and to it made me try imagine the whole perimeter that that section was part of.
The piece was very subtle and hence was somehow lost amongst the more monumental pieces on show.



Since the works were quite far from one another the best way to get around in Muster was on a bicycle. I decided to hire a bike for the day and stupidly parked it outside a coffee shop without taking particular note as to where I left it. When I went back to retrieve it I could not find it amongst the other 100 bicycles parked in the vicinity. I walked back an forth outside every coffee shop, but could not find my purple bicycle.
I decided to carry on and see the rest of the work on foot. There was a great show of the Archives of the Sculpture projects at the museum. It showed all the artists proposals, maquettes and working sketches which provided insight into the process of creating a public work. Still no bike.

I had seen all the works, more or less and decided to head back and look for my bike once more.

No such luck.




Berlin is where I headed next, for a healthy break from art for about one day until I discovered Erwin Wurm was talking at the Guggenheim about his new work. Now able to navigate the S-bahn I headed into the storm to find Wurm. It was well worth the wet All Stars, he was more serious than I imagined until he got up and held a pen between his crotch and the wall.

I am resigning myself from art for now, except for the Cindy Sherman retrospective I plan to see and a special visit to the Scrovegni chapel next week. It’s time for shopping, fine dining and good german beer.