HD-KS: A dOCUMENTA (13) Review

Hey Everyone,
Everything's going swell so far in Germany. Here's a little update/info post which gives you my take on Germany's ( and maybe the world's ) most prominent exhibition of contemporary art, the documenta, this year in its 13th incarnation.
Please note, this little guide is absolutely reflective of my own opinion and I don't claim a lot of knowledge about the scene ( + I didn't feel like reading 'The Guidebook', so much ). I'm only presenting some of my personal likes & dislikes. For a more thorough overview & walkthrough for those who might still decide to go themselves, I highly recommend the ArtOrbit illustrated guide, which gives a nice summary of all the major venues.
Thanks go to my aunt for letting us crash at her house!

We arrived in Kassel on thursday around noon by car. Having private accomodations makes things a little easier, but even if you plan on arriving by train getting around and finding your way should be no problem at all. The city is in its five-yearly documania ( or dOCUMANIA, this time? ) and there are signs, arrows, info centers and helpful passers-by all over. That way, in the tram en route to the city center we got our first insider tip: the Huguenot House ( Friedrichstraße 25 ). This, uhm, project consists of a formerly abandoned house redecorated & refurbished by Theaster Gates:

The Huguenot House's entrance behind yours truly

From the looks of it, the house is being used as shared living quarters, presumably to accomodate the people helping with the redesign and maybe the performers of Tino Sehgal's piece, which was housed in a large metal shed next to the house: Except for some very dim lighting the inside is completely dark. Upon entering one is greeted by an a-capella gust of voices producing various beatbox-ish sound-effects as well as the occasional vocal piece ( I unfortunately missed their rendition of 'Good Vibrations' ). After one's eyes get used to the dark, one is surprised to find out that around 90% of the people in the well-populated room are actually perfomers with single visitors stumbling inbetween. The Huguenot House seemed a little over-hyped in light of what is actually offered. I guess it's really more of a hot-spot for the art crowd to hang out after closing time than a can't-miss for visitor Joe Everyman.
After a peek into Obere Karlsstr. 14 ( Francis Alys -  two rooms of tiny pictures of what resembles TV test-screens, meh. The man has done way more interesting things ), we hit up one of the major venues: Neue Galerie, featuring one of this year's flagship pieces, Geoffrey Farmer's ensemble of Life Magazine cutouts glued onto little bamboo sticks - one of the many projects for which one has to stand in line to see it. What's easiest to appreciate about it, is probably the amount of tedious work that went into making it.

Neue Galerie - outside

The cutout mashup

Cutouts - detail

Next up was the documenta-Halle; the audience's darling here were Thomas Bayrle's sawn up combustion engines. Attached electric motors set the pistons in motion, displaying the full wobbling, clockwork-like elegance of an 8-cylinder radial aircraft engine. I wouldn't call them readymades - the artist's setup opens a ( usually hidden ) perspective on the motion of everyday machinery which here appears fluent and organic.

View into the documenta-Halle

cut-up engine - engineered aesthetics?

We topped of the day with a stroll through the Karlsaue park. The location is beautiful in the late afternoon of a sunny day. The archetypal baroque landscaping is sprinkled with classicist knick-knacks and left-overs from 5 decades of documentas as well as some current installations, such as Sam Durant's gallow-playground and Anna Maria Maiolino's clay sausage house.

On friday we made an early start to check out the Hauptbahnhof location. When it comes to real can't-misses - this is it, definitely my favorite venue. It's worth coming in before 10am, to get a chance to take part in Cardiff & Miller's video walk. The concept is simple but effective - the visitor gets an iPod which leads him on a guided tour of the station and its history. Not overwhelming, but a neat idea. It's recommended to show up either early ( 9.45ish ) or around 5-6pm to get one of the 60 iPods without having to wait for too long. Also located in the Hauptbahnhof area is Epaminonda & Cramer's house. This would probably be my favorite project this year, well worth the little wait out front. While not overly intellectual, it still takes some time to access and sure has to it the kind of vibe which I'm looking to experience in a contemporary art exhibition.

Waiting for Epaminonda/Cramer

Waiting for Cardiff/Miller

Inside Epaminonda/Cramer

Istvan Csakany's wooden workshop

 The Hauptbahnhof's Northern Wing [sic!] offers Michael Portnoy's mud hill ( 'no touching, please' - it's a large pile of dirt, for crying out loud! ) and Clemens von Wedemeyer's three panel work camp movie set-up, which is really not bad if you have enough time to actually watch all three films.

Haegue Yang's window shutters w/ no windows

 Haegue Yang's automatic window-shutters were , uhm, interesting. We decided not to wait a half hour or so for William Kentridge's installation, puzzled over Lara Favaretto's trash mountains and caught the last two minutes of a performance of the Critical Art Ensemble ( still seemed pretty cool, though; they offer performances everyday at 12.00 o'clock sharp ). Due to time constraints we had to skip the South Wing and the Nachrichtenmeisterei. Go & see this if you can!

Favaretto's artsy trash

The exhibition's own bus line took us over to the Weinberg bunker - not worth putting on the safety helmet.

However:

Rojas - beams

Rojas - hollow tree stump

 Rojas - cat which died on account of a parasitic egg breaking through its underbelly

Rojas - church bells

Much cooler than the bunker are Adrian Villar Rojas' Weinbergterrassen. The fact that his outdoor sculptures have already suffered under the weather only adds to their particular presence. Great city views included when it's not raining!















The Fridericianum, traditionally the exhibition's main venue, didn't knock my socks off. The ground floor was dominated by Ryan Gander's easy breezes - breezing through mostly empty halls. Meh.
One cool thing: Anton Zeilinger's ( yes, the Anton Zeilinger ) quantum optics set-up. One of the few pieces that I thought I understood pretty well. Surprisingly hot with the crowd, too:

'Plain wave? Singlet state? Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion? Piece-a-cake!'

This is art now!

For those with a technical inclination, the Orangerie down by the Karlsaue also incorporates the Physikalisch-Astronomisches Kabinett, with some pretty neat 18th-century-nerd playthings.
To end it off some more non-descript pieces from the Fridericianum:

If you came all the way down here - thanks for reading. Drop me a little 'hi' here or on the book.

Best
 Dennis.

BTW: All picture credits to Weiwei!