A Critical Perspective

Fareed Arm aly wit h Rashid Masharawi,CYiedcpo/ r)f (installation view),2002. Maria Fernandez • n a conversation with a colleague from New York who had I attended the opening of Documentall, she warned me not to I bother to attend because the show "merits neither the expense nor the effort." I wondered if she thought Documentall was too political but she simply found it "uninteresting" and that all of Enwezor's work "was better achieved by Catherine David in Documenta X" My colleague's opinion has been reiterated in multiple reviews of Documentall, ranging from educated critiques of the exhibition's aesthetic and conceptual bases, to aggressive attacks and mocking commentaries on the personal habits of Mr. Okwui Enwezor, the chief curator.1 The much-debated exhibition in Kassel is the last of five platforms of conferences and workshops designed to displace Documenta's Euro-centrality both spatially and in a cultural-historical sense.2 The preceding four platforms took place in Berlin, St. Lucia, Vienna, New Delhi and Lagos. In addition to "deterritorializing " the exhibition, Mr. Enwezor questioned "universalizing conceptions of cultural and artistic modernity as well as the notion of the autonomy of art from all political and social d e m a n d s . " 3 Indeed, these objectives do parallel those of Documenta X, an exhibition that championed "the political potential of art" as one of its primary concerns. Contrary to my New York colleague, I found Documental 1 to be supplementary rather than imitative and redundant in relation to Documenta X. Documentall expands the parameters of Documenta X, developing a project only started by Catherine David. She had undertaken the important initiative of integrating the context of artistic production with the study of contemporary art. To achieve this aim, Documenta X introduced a wealth of theoretical materials to a reluctant German art world. The catalogue featured texts by significant theorists including Gramsci, Foucault, Deleuze, Said, Fanon, Braudel, and Clastres. Topics of discussion included globalization, postcoloniality, world economies, and the social and cultural changes brought about by electronic technologies . In theory, the examination of these topics implied that the study of art history should be expanded beyond the object, beyond traditional geographical categories, and beyond the conventional limits of the discipline. This was especially evident in the 100 Days-100 Guests lectures/events in which artists, critics and theorists participated. As the curator admitted, the exhibition could not cover all the areas mapped out by its broad theoretical foundations, thus its focus remained on Europe and the United States. Still, the inclusion of Caribbean, Vietnamese and African cinema in the exhibition catalogue and related exhibition 4 8 • N k a J o u r n a l o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A f r i c a n A r t PERSPECTIVE Fareed Arm aly wit h Rashid Masharawi, From/To (Detail of installation), 2002 events indicated the need for a more global vision. Documental 1 presents concrete examples of art that respond to the political and economic challenges identified in Documenta X. It takes seriously the task of examining artistic production in the context of globalization, t h o u g h as in the previous Documenta, and for that matter any exhibition, it fails to represent the entire globe. Like Documenta X, Documental 1 presents art produced from the late 50s to the present and includes artists such as Hanne Darboven, who was already represented in previous Documentas. This contributes to a sense of continuity with the previous exhibition. Documental 1 showcases a great variety of works with marked preference towards conceptual art and the narrative and documentary genres of photography, film, and video. Despite the multiplicity of works and approaches, some themes persist. Various artists explore issues of systematization and categorization , as well as the impossibility of regulating, systematizing and abstracting specific phenomena. Often, the two tendencies occur in a single work as if to illustrate the subjective nature of classification. A good example is Berndt and Hilla Becher's photographic series Half Timbered Houses of the Siegen Industrial Zone (1958-1973). This exhibit consists of about two hundred Spring / S u...