I have just read Candice Hopkins essay “The Appropriation Debates” in the most recent issue of Mousse magazine. Hopkins, whose work on global indigenous art and culture I first encountered at documenta 14, discusses two controversial artworks of the last year: the inclusion of Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket (2016) at the Whitney Biennial and […]
Today in our discussion group Myth Mother Invention we have moved on to the topic of “Infans” – the pre-lingual baby and child. In preparation for our meeting, I shared with the group, the so-called ‘Danae fragment’ by the ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides in the following translation: … when in the chest, intricately fashioned, […]
Today I will be attending a talk by Edith Hall, Professor in the Classics Department and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London. Hall is not only an expert on Greek tragedy, but also on the reception of ancient drama through the ages. More recently, her work has focused on Aristotle and the talk […]
Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra were vital presences at documenta 14. In Kassel, the score of the composer’s Treatise was not only displayed in the Neue Galerie, but also reproduced on the glass windows of Documenta-Halle, while there were concerts of Cardew’s Thälmann Variations and We Sing For The Future!, on September 8th (I missed it […]
In a letter to Atticus (Att. 4. 8. 2), Cicero expresses his delight at the installation of some new bookshelves in an oddly convoluted and high-flown fashion: postea uero, quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit, mens addita uidetur meis aedibus. qua quidem in re mirifica opera Dionysi et Menophili tui fuit. nihil uenustius quam illa tua […]
Any visitor to documenta 14, in either Athens, Kassel or both, who saw the work of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña would immediately think of the color red. Red is also the color faced by the reader of her recent book About to Happen, published by siglio press. Yet just over half-way through the book, the […]
Ahead of his talk today at the Wexner Center for the Arts, I have been reading James Voorhies’ book Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968. As part of his fourth chapter on ‘The Industrial Art Complex’, Voorhies discusses how cancellation of Manifesta 6 in 2006 in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia […]
Today is the last day of documenta 14 and rather than retracing my steps over what happened between Athens and Kassel since April, instead I want to look to the future, specifically to an ongoing project that I first encountered in the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) and then again in an exhibition organized […]
Tomorrow is the last day of documenta 14, the exhibition that split itself between Athens and Kassel. To mark the closure of this unique experiment, e-flux has published a joint statement by many of the artists who participated. What struck me about this statement was the way in which the living artists emphasized the significance […]
