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Top German art show, curated by RI collective Ruangrupa, starts amid anti-Semitism row
The exhibition, which turns the sleepy German city of Kassel into the centre of the art world once every five years, kicks off Saturday after months of bitter rows.
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Cardboards, work of the collective Taring Padi from Indonesia are seen at the Friedrichsplatz square in front of the Fridericianum Museum, one of the venues of the documenta fifteen contemporary art exhibition, in Kassel, central Germany, on June 16, 2022. documenta 15 tales place in Kassel from June 18 to September 25, 2022 and is curated by the Indonesian artists' collective ruangrupa. (AFP/Ina Fassbender)
B
reak-ins and vandalism, accusations of racism and anti-Semitism and a giant compost heap: Documenta, one of the world's biggest art fairs, opens this week under a cloud of controversy.
The exhibition, which turns the sleepy German city of Kassel into the centre of the art world once every five years, kicks off Saturday after months of bitter rows.
"Documenta has always been a place of exchange and heated debates," Hesse state culture minister Angela Dorn said ahead of the 15th edition.
Over 100 days the wildly disparate works of more than 1,500 participants will be displayed at 32 sites across the city, with more than one million visitors expected.
For the first time since its launch in 1955, the show is being curated by a collective, Jakarta-based Ruangrupa.
The group's decision to turn the spotlight overwhelmingly on artists from the Global South rather than Europe or the United States has opened up the event to a much broader range of perspectives.
"Documenta promises to be radical, from who is invited to the art, to the venues," its director Sabine Schormann told reporters.
