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09.19.2017

documenta 14, April 8–September 17, 2017, in Athens, Kassel, and beyond, has reached more people than ever before

documenta 14 is not owned by anyone in particular. It is shared among its visitors and artists, readers and writers, as well as all those whose work made it happen.

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News

David Perlov (1930–2003)

When Israeli filmmaker David Perlov died, he left behind dozens of Hefte (notebooks), filled with epigrams, texts for films, biographical notes, images interwoven with texts, and texts with images. Yet…

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Notes

Gauri Gill

Hooran balances precariously on a jagged rock in Barmer, Rajasthan. Her hands are curled up like claws, and her gaze is fearsome. Mir Hasan clutches the body of his bedridden grandfather, Haji Saraj ud…

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Artists

Voyage of the Sable Venus

by Robin Coste Lewis

Prologue:

What follows is [an excerpt of] a narrative poem comprised solely and entirely of the titles, catalog entries, or exhibit descriptions of Western art objects in which a black female figure…

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South Issue #9 [documenta 14 #4]

Native Foreigners

with Natasha Ginwala, Kyrillos Sarris, and Cecilia Vicuña

Guests open up current forms and strategies of artistic self-determination beyond, behind, or within institutions. The program brings together fans and scholars alike across space and time, for discussions…

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Calendar
New York
Athens
New York
Kassel

The documenta 14 Reader

The main book of documenta 14 takes the form of a Reader, evoking the various meanings associated with the term…

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Publications

Elpidos

Elpidos Street is the site of a performance by Regina José Galindo, in which the artist wears a dress kept by the family of a woman murdered in her native Guatemala. While the Victoria Square area is…

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Venues

Scratch Orchestra

The Scratch Orchestra was founded in July 1969, growing out of a series of music composition classes held at Morley College London that were attended by avant-garde musicians as well as artists interested…

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Historical Positions

Kulturzentrum Schlachthof

Opened in 1978, this cultural center in the historical administration building of the former stockyards in Mombachstrasse has long been a place where people of disparate social backgrounds come together…

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Venues

Editors’ Letter

by Quinn Latimer, Adam Szymczyk

I.

Art is “not a hobby—it’s why we wake up every morning,” as artist Naeem Mohaiemen recently put it to his graduate advisers, explaining the year he took off from writing his PhD dissertation…

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South Issue #8 [documenta 14 #3]

Keimena #5: Verzió

by Miklós Erdély

Miklós Erdély’s Version gravitates around Tiszaeszlár, a small East Hungarian village where in 1882 a young maid went missing and was later found dead in the river. The local Jewish community was accused of ritually murdering her. The blood libel trial that followed ignited anti-Semitic propaganda, agitation, and later pogroms in Austria-Hungary that gained worldwide attention…

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Public TV

Bibliocaust

by Mustapha Benfodil

I am called BODY WRITING. Unidentified Verbose Object. ISBN: 978-1-14210-562-7. 197 pages, deletions included. 15 x 21 cm. Standard offset paper. Cover: a photograph by Mark Velasquez depicting a naked…

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South Issue #7 [documenta 14 #2]

Working Group Distomo

with Argyris N. Sfountouris and Margarita Tsomou

In Greece, June 10 is the most significant day of remembrance for victims of the Nazi regime. On this day in 1944, an SS massacre took place in the village of Distomo: The entire village was burned to…

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Calendar

Material Matters Library

The “Material Matters” library is a collection of objects and sounds that have been entrusted to aneducation by documenta 14 artists…

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Public Education

“Elections Change Nothing”: On the Misery of the Democracy of Equivalence

by Angela Dimitrakaki

It has been suggested that we live in “momentous times”1—times, that is, of profound significance for the living history of humanity. I borrow this definition from a homonymous curatorial project…

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South Issue #6 [documenta 14 #1]