Join us for three days of total art immersion across the indoor and outdoor venues of leafy Kassel. Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the conversation around Documenta, a once in half-decade chance to encounter the most provocative artists of the moment as they respond to the rapidly changing political and economic landscape. The Contemporary Art Society will be providing a limited number of fully funded places on the trip which can be applied for by filling out a Travel Bursary Form.
Founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955, Documenta takes place in Kassel, Germany every five years and is always a much anticipated feature of the arts calendar. Polish curator Adam Szymczyk has been appointed artistic director of Documenta 14. He is the director and chief curator at Kunsthalle Basel and was a co-founder of the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, at which he worked as curator from 1997 till 2003. For this edition of Documenta, Szymczyk has shared the exhibition between Athens and Kassel for the first time.
Ever since Greece accepted a €240 billion bailout from the EU and IMF in 2010, relations between Germany and Greece have been the focus of international scrutiny. While the recent financial relationship between Greece and Germany factored into Szymczyk’s interest in Athens, for him its geographic identity and immigration issues are more curatorially relevant. Hostility toward austerity measures and the difficult relationship between the two countries will be addressed during the process of making the exhibition, but it will not become its main topic. Szymczyk is interested in Athens as a contemporary metropolitan city of the Mediterranean, connected to other places across the water and bordering Turkey, it is a portal where people coming from many other places can have visibility.
Documenta 14 was conceived as a three-year-long process of learning and producing knowledge involving the communities of both cities. It culminates in an exhibition installed across multiple sites in Athens, from April to July, and in Kassel, from June to September
Please send in your expressions of interest by 15 February 2017 to Ali MacGilp, Programmes Manager ali@contemporaryartsociety.org
To download the Contemporary Art Society Travel Bursary Form (.docx) click here