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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
by Artur Żmijewski

The makeshift refugee camp in Calais, in the vicinity of the French port and hulking concrete bunkers, was known as the Jungle. According to different estimates, it gave shelter to nine or ten thousand…

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Notes

Wang Bing

Now recognized as one of the most prominent filmmakers working in China, Wang Bing first came to the attention of the global film community with Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, a nine-hour-long documentary…

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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]

Black Athena Reloaded 1: Ideas as Migrants
Our Common Ghosts

with Christian Nyampeta and Isaïe Nzeyimana

In 1987 Martin Bernal published Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization putting forward a controversial thesis that tried to delink Greek history from the western narratives that…

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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

Fylasion 42

In close proximity to the Mentis Center for the preservation of traditional textile techniques at Polyfimou 6, Aboubakar Fofana has taken occupancy of a former microbrewery, installing indigo vats as part…

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Venues

August Spies

August Spies was born near Bad Hersfeld in central Hessen in 1855 and trained at the Polytechnikum in Kassel. Orphaned at age 17, he emigrated to the US, finally settling in Chicago in 1873, where he became…

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Historical Positions

Gloria-Kino

Gloria-Kino first opened its doors in 1954. Today it retains the typical architecture of its time, while the interior was renovated in the 1980s. An important venue in Kassel’s cinema landscape, the…

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Venues

So Many Hungers

by Natasha Ginwala

It is believed the spotted hyenas of Harar came to roam the city during the Ethiopian famine of 1888, surviving on organic refuse and human remains.1 Traveling through Ireland preceding the Great Hunger…

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South Issue #8 [documenta 14 #3]

Keimena #35: Louomenoi (Bathers)

by Eva Stefani

The title of Eva Stefani’s Bathers points to a painterly tradition that emerged in the nineteenth century alongside the advent of leisure, the nudist movement, and love for nature. Its most famous examples are the Bathers of Edgar Degas or Paul Cézanne…

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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]

Indigenous Knowledge 1: On Violent Waters. A Discussion on Borders and Migration

with Dimitris Parsanoglou, Maria Iorio, and Raphaël Cuomo

In contemporary discussions of European borders, the sea stands as a silent and invisible yet violent medium that accentuates the tragic or heroic border crossings of migrants and refugees. Although it…

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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

A United Front Against the Debt

by Thomas Sankara

The case of AKP, an eighty-year-old Polish immigrant in England described by neuropsychologist Chris Moulin et al. in a 2005 paper in the journal Neuropsychologia, is one of many prominent examples of…

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South Issue #6 [documenta 14 #1]