The documenta 14: Daybook emphasizes the 163 calendar days of the exhibition in Athens and Kassel in 2017—a first-time extension of the usual 100-day documenta project—and the personal and subjective nature of the spectator’s relationship to them. Each documenta 14 artist is granted a day in the Daybook, which includes a newly commissioned text as well as images selected by the artist specifically for the publication. The texts are authored by a wide variety of writers—critics, curators, poets, novelists, and historians—and are close readings of the artists’ practices in an array of literary forms: criticism, letters, poems, and parables. The Daybook is accompanied by two map booklets, for Athens and Kassel respectively, that are available in the exhibition and can be inserted into the Daybook’s dust jacket, thereby completing the book.
With contributions by Alexander Alberro, Athena Athanasiou, Negar Azimi, Jean-François Chevrier, Moyra Davey, Marta Dziewańska, Anselm Franke, Natasha Ginwala, Paz Guevara, Rachel Haidu, Virginija Januškevičiūtė, R. Siva Kumar, Yvette Mutumba, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, Panos Panopoulos, Yehuda Safran, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Zhang Yaxuan, and many others