Friday, 6 March / 19:00 – 21:00
Nedre gate 7 / Oslo
This panel focus on documenta 12 (Kassel, Germany, 2007), an exhibition that constituted an important example of how display strategies affect the experience of artworks, and included artists such as Charlotte Posenenske, Sanja Iveković and Nasreen Mohamedi. The panel, which will include the two curators of the exhibition, Ruth Noack and Roger M. Buergel, will discuss the relationship between written discourse and the exhibition of works; the notion of form and its relation to the political legacy of constructivism; and the possibility of education within an exhibition context. Participants include Roger M. Buergel, Ruth Noack, Michael Leja, Peter Osborne and Suely Rolnik. 'Form, Politics, Spectatorship: documenta 12 as a Case Study' is moderated by Marta Kuzma and Pablo Lafuente, respectively director and associate curator at OCA.
Roger Buergel, Artistic director of documenta 12 and chief curator and deputy director of programmes at the Miami Art Museum, Miami, USA
Years ago, as a contribution to an exhibition, the artist Alejandra Riera gave me 12 photographs. It was not
evident what the relation between these photographs was, or whether there was any relation at all.
Showing this 'piece' helped and still helps me to clarify my own position when it comes to ambiguity,
formlessness and the inadequacy of knowledge as a category capable of containing aesthetic experience.
Michael Leja, Professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania and recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008)
One of the remarkable features of the published responses to documenta 12 is how much space they devoted to
discerning the curatorial intentions that motivated particular clusters. Why group artist A with artist B
and C, and what does this grouping have to do with the themes? The curators not only provoked these questions
but also made them difficult to answer. Part of the difficulty stemmed from the fact that some clusters
displayed clear internal correlations, while others seemed utterly incoherent on every level. It quickly
became clear that any and every visual, perceptual or conceptual basis for association had to be considered.
Puzzling clusters with ambiguous relations to a set of challenging themes served to encourage creative and
expansive engagement with the art. M.L. — Leja's opening comments will explore this strategy of
using exemplary demonstrations that oscillate between being challenging and simple-minded. He will present
two brief examples of the curators' guidance to visitors as illustrations of their technique.
Ruth Noack, Art historian, critic and curator of documenta 12
Whatever happened to the leitmotifs of documenta 12? Prior to the exhibition, documenta 12 proposed three
leitmotifs – 'Modernity?', 'Bare life?' and 'Education?' – which were to be discussed trans-locally.
Noack's contribution to this round table will focus on the local discussion of these motifs within the Advisory
Board formed in Kassel and its subsequent effects on the exhibition.
Peter Osborne, Professor of modern European philosophy and director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy,
Middlesex University, London, UK
In his presentation Osborne will raise questions about the relationship between the social and aesthetic aspects of
artistic form, in the context of documenta 12's presentation of the legacies of constructivism and neo-concretism.
Suely Rolnik, Psychoanalyst, critic and curator, São Paulo, Brazil
Suely Rolnik's presentation will discuss the difficulties and issues raised by the inclusion, within contemporary exhibition
settings, of works from the past with a political undercurrent. Continuing an investigation that begun with her work as a curator
on Lygia Clark, Rolnik will examine possible strategies for activating those politics today.