Commoning and Learning from Athens, Documenta 14 (2017)

Performative Occupations, Instituting and Infrastructures

Forfattere

  • Sevie Tsampalla Exhibition Research Lab - Liverpool School of Art and Design, John Moores University

Nøgleord:

Documenta, large-scale periodic contemporary art exhibitions (biennials), commoning

Resumé

The paper focuses on Documenta 14, Learning from Athens (2017). Documenta is a large-scale international, periodic, contemporary art exhibition which takes place every five years in Kassel, its permanent home since 1955. In 2017 the exhibition was also staged in Athens, a city which Polish curator Adam Szymczyk saw as a relevant vantage point from which to speak about crisis, austerity and resistance against them. The move followed the attention that Athens has drawn in the past decade as a site to learn from everyday struggles and collective art practices amidst ongoing crisis; particularly in occupations that house migrants and refugees, commoning practices based on sharing, cooperation and solidarity, provide collective grassroots responses to austerity, anti-migrant policies and shape new forms of social organization. Documenta 14 closed its doors by performatively declaring itself as a commons. Its public program had inquired about the commons as a political concept in relation to struggles in migration and commoning in relation to negotiating the boundaries of identities and art institutions. The move to Athens could even be seen as a gesture towards instituting in the commons, since the curatorial team called for solidarity with the city’s organizations. Among the envisioned institutional alliances, which ultimately never materialized, was the Athens Biennale, a biennial receiving scarce state support and considered a resilient model experimenting with collectivity. Moreover, by prioritizing partnerships mainly with public institutions, in order to support them as common goods, Documenta 14 pointed to the commons as a savior of the public, rather than as a way to redefine its boundaries, creating a gap in its horizon as a Documenta instituted in the commons. By examining Documenta 14 and commoning in relation to the context, the scope and lastly the instituting horizon, the paper thus argues that the gaps between the performative claim of Documenta 14 as a commons and the potentializing of commoning by the exhibition remain significant.

Forfatterbiografi

Sevie Tsampalla, Exhibition Research Lab - Liverpool School of Art and Design, John Moores University

Sevie Tsampalla is an art historian and curator, interested in intersections between art, exhibition making and urban commons. She is a PhD candidate in Exhibition Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, researching biennials and commoning. She initiated urban interventions in Athens and Brussels, as co-founder of the collectives Reconstruction Community and AAA and has curated exhibitions in artist-led spaces (Trophy Room, Liverpool; Pianofabriek, Brussels; AirSpace gallery, Stoke-on-Trent; Castlefield gallery, Manchester). As assistant curator for Liverpool Biennial (2016) and cluster-curator for Track, a citywide exhibition by S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art – Ghent (2012), she worked on performances, installations, conferences and publications.

Referencer

Arampatzi, Athina: “Constructing solidarity as resistive and creative agency in austerity Greece” in Comparative European Politics, 16 (1), 2018, pp. 50–66.
Artmuseum 2018, https://artmuseum.pl/en/news/noc-czarnego-mleka (accessed March 20, 2020) .
Athens Biennale 2015, http://athensbiennale.org/en/news/synapse-1-introducing-a-laboratory-for-production-post-2011/ (accessed March 20, 2020).
Athanasiou, Athena: “Performing the Institution ‘As If It Were Possible’” in Hlavajova, Maria and Sheikh, Simon (eds.), Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2016, pp. 679–691.
Beech, David: “Notes on the Art Boycott” in Warsza, J. (ed.) I can’t work like this. A Reader on Recent Boycotts and Contemporary Art, Berlin, Sternberg Press, 2017, pp. 13–22.
Berland, Lauren: “The commons: Infrastructures for troubling times” in Society & Space, Vol. 34(3), 2016, pp. 393–419.
Contemporary Art Showcase Athens 2017, http://www.contemporaryartshowcaseathens.com/newsroom/2017/10/10/the-performative-fest-of-the-commons-on-avdi-square (accessed July 8, 2020).
Demos, T.J.: “Learning from documenta 14. Athens, Post-Democracy, and Decolonisation” in Third Text Online. Critical Perspectives on Art and Culture, 2017, http://thirdtext.org/demos-documenta (accessed March 18, 2019).
Dimitrakaki, Angela: Τέχνη και Παγκοσμιοποίηση: Από το Μεταμοντέρνο Σημείο στη Βιοπολιτική Αρένα [Art and Globalization: From Post-modern Sign to the Biopolitical Arena], Athens, Estia, 2003.
Documenta 14, 2014, https://newsletter.documenta.de/t/j-12C9729D2BF513CC (accessed June 13, 2020).
Documenta 14, 2017, https://www.documenta14.de/en/news/13738/documenta-14- and-the-national-museum-of-contemporary-art-athens-emst-announce- their-collaboration-in-athens-and-kassel (accessed March 19, 2019).
Documenta 14, Twitter post, September 18 2017, 4:09 a.m., https://twitter.com/documenta__14/status/909736217000005632 (accessed March 19, 2019).
EMST, 2018, https://www.emst.gr/en/shortnews-en/temporary-suspension-of-emst-exhibition-program (accessed March 25, 2020).
2015 ECF Princes Margriet Award for Culture Ceremony: Adam Szymczyk speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPygBu_pxDk (accessed March 25, 2020).
Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire 2004, London, Hamish Hamilton, 2004.
Kalivis, George, Interview with the author, June 23, 2019.
Kompatsiaris, Panos: The Politics of Contemporary Art Biennials: Spectacles of Critique, Theory and Art, New York, Routledge, 2017.
Latimer, Quinn and Szymczyk, Adam (eds.) The Reader, Munich, Prestel Verlag, 2017.
McKee, Yates: Strike Art. Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, London, Verso, 2016.
Προσωρινή Ακαδημία Τεχνών (ΠΑΤ), Δέσποινα Ζευκιλή, Ελπίδα Καραμπά και Γλυκερία Σταθοπούλου, [PAT, Zefkili, Despina, Karaba, Elpida and Stathopoulou, Glykeria]: “documenta 14: Συνεχείς αναδιπλώσεις”, [Continuous folds] 2017, online, http://avgi-anagnoseis.blogspot.com/2017/07/documenta-14_31.html (accessed June 19, 2020).
Smith, Helena 2017, “Crapumenta!’ … Anger in Athens as the blue lambs of Documenta hit town,” online, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/14/documenta-14-athens-german-art-extravaganza (accessed June 19, 2020).
Stavrides, Stavros: Common Space: The City as Commons. London, Zed Books, 2016.
Szymczyk, Adam: “Iterability and Otherness – Learning and Working from Athens” in Latimer, Quinn and Szymczyk, Adam (eds.) The Reader, Munich, Prestel Verlag, 2017, pp. 17–42.
The Apatride Society of the political others:Indigenous Knowledge 2: Fleeing and Occupying with Olga Lafazani, Bahar Askavzadeh, and Brigitta Kuster. Lafazani, Olga: “Negotiating Gender in Occupied Spaces that Host Refugees and Migrants in Athens”. Talk in The Apatride Society of the Political Others. Documenta 14, 2017, https://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/4757/indigenous-knowledge-2-fleeing-and-occupying (accessed March 29, 2020).
Tramboulis, Theophilos and Tzirtzilakis, Yorgos: “When Crisis Becomes Form” in Stedelijk Studies, issue #6, 2018, online, https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/when-crisis-becomes-form-athens-as-a-paradigm/ (accessed March 11, 2019).
Warsza, Joanna. (ed.) I can’t work like this. A Reader on Recent Boycotts and Contemporary Art, Berlin, Sternberg Press, 2017.
Weiner, Andrew, Stefan, “The Art Of The Possible: With And Against Documenta 14” in Biennial Foundation, 2017, online, http://www.biennialfoundation.org/2017/08/art-possible-documenta-14/ (accessed March 20, 2019).
Zefkili, Despina: “Exercises of Freedom”: Documenta 14” in Third Text Online, Critical Perspectives on Art and Culture, 2017, online, http://thirdtext.org/exercises-freedom-documenta14 (accessed August 15, 2019).

Downloads

Publiceret

2020-12-11