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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

Listening to Matanzas

by Neil Leonard and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

The former plantation of Álava in the Matanzas province of Cuba evokes sound before one hears it. In January 2017, we went there to record local musicians and were told to meet them near the bell tower…

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Notes

Olaf Holzapfel

As an artist born in a country that no longer exists, and whose coming-of-age involved crossing a border between the East-West divide of the Cold War era that is fast becoming a distant memory, Olaf Holzapfel…

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Artists

Treaty and Protest: John Miller’s Photographs by Cassandra Barnett and Jon Bywater, with an introduction by Marina Fokidis

I visited photographer John Miller’s studio in 2015, on the recommendation of friends and colleagues who reside in New Zealand. I had just met with art writer Jon Bywater in Auckland, who confirmed the…

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South Issue #9 [documenta 14 #4]

#19 Attempt. Come.

by Georgia Sagri

Attempt.
Come.
Undefined.
Be the point of no-reference.
Constant,
and as a state of formation.
Play.
Continue to play with the beat.
Vibrate with me, so chaos can enter.
It is an invitation.
Come.
As water.
As the…

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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

Stavropoulou 15, Amerikis Square

The area near Amerikis Square is a working-class and multicultural neighborhood. Stavropoulou 15 is located on a quiet and pretty street, a typical neoclassical-revival Athenian building built in stone…

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Venues

Louis Gurlitt

The Gurlitt family saga—one thread among many running throughout this venue—begins with Louis Gurlitt, a prolific landscape painter born in Hamburg in 1812, whose mastery of the genre contributed to…

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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

Keimena #9: The Forgotten Space

by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch

American artist Allan Sekula made The Forgotten Space after he was invited to create a work of art in a public space. He thought it important to understand television as such a public space and set out to make a film for national television with his co-director, the Paris-based American film theorist Noël Burch…

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Public TV

Outlawed Social Life

by Candice Hopkins

U’mista and Nuyumbalees. Kwak’wala words. Names bestowed on two new cultural centers in Alert Bay, British Columbia, founded to house masks and dance regalia repatriated after the potlatch ban (1885–1951)…

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South Issue #7 [documenta 14 #2]

If You Won’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep

with Andrew Feinstein, Johan Grimonprez, and Marina Fokidis

A discussion on Democracy and War
with Andrew Feinstein, author, and Johan Grimonprez, artist
moderated by Marina Fokidis, Head of documenta 14 Artistic Office, Athens

What is the relationship between politics…

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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

Like a Riot: The Politics of Forgetfulness, Relearning the South, and the Island of Dr. Moreau

by Françoise Vergès

The mechanism of forgetfulness has ramifications far beyond the importance it has played in psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud notes that forgetfulness is not “left to psychic arbitrariness, but that it follows…

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South Issue #6 [documenta 14 #1]