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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

Dignity has never been photographed

by Abounaddara

Dignity isn’t well regarded at the moment. It’s seen as a normative concept, difficult to gauge and even more difficult to reconcile with artistic practices that tend to strive for emancipation from norms. It’s also a political argument that has been made by reactionaries and enemies of artistic freedom. Finally, it is an ideal that goes against the tide of nihilism in this atmosphere of triumphant post-truth…

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Notes

Negros Tou Moria

The concert hall is dark. A rebetiko song from the 1930s flows through the loudspeakers:

last night in the dark
two black men cornered me
to search me
and take the hash away
from me

As the song concludes, Negros…

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Artists

Double Gambit: Katerina Koskina and Adam Szymczyk in Conversation with Domenick Ammirati

The collaboration between documenta 14 and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST) seemed both inevitable and unlikely. But no more unlikely than documenta 14 dividing like a replicating…

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South Issue #9 [documenta 14 #4]

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
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

Stoa tou Vivliou

Known as the Stoa Arsakeiou when it was built in 1900, this central yet somewhat hidden arcade took on its current name, which means “arcade of books” in 1996, when the Society for the Promotion of…

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Venues

David Perlov

Filmmaker David Perlov was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1930 and passed away in Tel Aviv in 2003. In 1957, he made his first short film, Old Aunt China, an animation based on sarcastic drawings and texts…

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Historical Positions

Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe Train Station

To many visitors to documenta, if not most, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe Train Station, constructed to replace what is now known as the KulturBahnhof closer to the city center, affords the first glimpse and impression…

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Venues

How to Write Painting: A Conversation about History Painting, Language, and Colonialism with Gordon Hookey, Hendrik Folkerts, and Vivian Ziherl

The entwined edifice of history, the archive, and the written word have long been the subject of critique within Western theory. However, what might yet be learned from turning our attention to traditions…

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South Issue #8 [documenta 14 #3]

Keimena #29: Beuys

by Andres Veiel

Beuys, a film by Andres Veiel, is a thrilling portrait of one of the most controversial artists of the twentieth century…

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Public TV

Mask Silence, Silence Masks, or A Condition of Utmost Listening

by Stathis Gourgouris

Silence 1

The sense we have is that in the vast expanses of space between celestial bodies there is a void. Hence, total silence. The Greek word for space is διάστημα, which means literally in-­between…

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South Issue #7 [documenta 14 #2]

From Postporn to Ecosex: An Art, Love, and Activism Journey

by Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens

Ex-porn star and artist Annie Sprinkle and professor, sculptor, and video artist Beth Stephens fell in love at the beginning of the century. Their relationship triggered an artistic collaboration that…

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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