in Reviews | 29 OCT 10

The secret agents’ press conference

The curatorial and advisory board of documenta 13 – officially now spelled this way: dOCUMENTA (13) – was announced and introduced today by Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in Berlin. The event, which took place in the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre, was one of the more curiously absurd press conferences I have ever attended.

One reason for that is the usual one: almost two years in advance, what can you, or what can you want to, really say about a major exhibition such as documenta (apart from, say, that it takes place from 9 June–16 September 2012)? Well obviously not much, since you don’t want to steal the thunder of experiencing the actual exhibition by giving away concrete conceptual frameworks or even names of artists so early in advance. Totally understandable.

The other reason was Christov-Bakargiev’s determination to overdetermine that very fact, to turn the usual PR ritual – that of summoning, already at such an early stage, curiosity, attention, coverage, despite of this need to not give away too much – into a theatrical play of tangential gestures and paradoxical demonstrations of the importance of the paradoxical.

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The setting was the usual: three tables covered in black cloth, white name-cards, microphones, glasses of water, a computer projection above the heads. Christov-Bakargiev introduced some of her advisers – curators, artists, scientists. Present on stage were: New York artist duo Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri, Sofia Hernandéz Chong Cuy (director of the Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City), Korean curator Sunjung Kim, Marta Kuzma (Director of OCA Norway), Chus Martínez (Chief Curator at MACBA in Barcelona), Kitty Scott (Director of Visual Arts at Banff Centre, Alberta, CA), Andrea Viliani (Director of the Fondazione Galleria Civica in Trento, Italy), and Anton Zeilinger, Professor of Physics at the University of Vienna.

All of these, except for the latter, are members of what Christov-Bakargiev calls her group of ‘agents’ (there are seven more who were not on the panel) – the term ‘agents’ playing on the different meanings of the word, the dominant one for her probably being the philosophical concept of ‘agency’, as in the capacity to act in a world. There is obviously another connotation that played itself out during the course of the event.

Anton Zeilinger – who briefly talked about the questioning of notions of space-time and reality in quantum physics, and the way artists feel this questioning occurs in their practice as well – is a member of the ‘Honorary Advisory Committee’, which includes ten others, one of which, Donna Haraway (the eminent theorist of feminism and technoscience) gave a short Skype statement projected onto the large screen, basically confirming that she supports Christov-Barkargiev’s support of her ideas (multi-species co-evolution, de-anthropocentricizing cultural practice etc.), as expressed in Christov-Barkargiev’s 8,000-word letter handed out as the main press release.

The letter starts with a ‘My dear friend’ address, and – apart from briefly referring to ‘Donna’ and numerous travels to Afghanistan, Australia, India, Canada, Brazil, Norway etc, as well as ruminations about the history and specific status of documenta – it basically states, in oh so many words, the refusal to come up with a ‘program’: ‘My friend, we must soon part. You see, you ask me for a program, and I have barely been able to provide you with an affect or intent…’

The implication is clear: there are all these people out there – the press, the colleagues, the art world in general – that are asking for something neatly describable that characterizes what the Artistic Director of documenta plans to do. She, for obvious and as said understandable reasons, has no intention to do this at this point in time (or maybe never). Ironically though, the pressure, it seems, comes not only from outside, but just as much, if not more, from ‘inside’, from documenta itself. From the institution and its machinery.

Isn’t it the institution itself that produces the anxious attempt to create a wave of suspense and attention that will carry it all the way to 2012 and beyond? And thus the Artistic Director communicates in a somewhat peripatetic manner that she can’t really communicate much apart from her willingness to communicate, and apart from some more general ideas. These general ideas largely took the form of what is maybe most aptly called ‘binary fluffing’ (Polly Staple’s term), i.e. the stating of oppositional terms as being in a paradoxical or dialectic relation (participation and withdrawal, embodiment and disembodiment, inclusion and exclusion etc.etc.). Of course, these terms and what they refer to are often entwined symptomatically and interestingly (or both) in art and in the world – but it’s quite symptomatic, and not very interesting, to hear this merely being stated, and put in such accordance with the usual curator-speak.

On that note, several times Christov-Bakargiev emphasized how uncomfortable she is with the term ‘curator’, and that not least also therefore she chose ‘agents’ as titles for her advisers. The obvious glamour of secret agents took on the more dull levels of day-to-day secret service administrative requirements, however, when these curators where then asked to give short statements, left with saying either that they can’t say much as it’s too early, or contributing to the general mood of binary fluffing. Only artist duo Anastas and Gabri, whose series of events and activities under the title AND AND AND – intended to ‘consider with individuals and groups across the world the role art and culture can play today’ – differed in that they didn’t resort to binary pairings, but simply, as the name of their project suggests, enumeration: their project, they stated, addresses issues such as ‘friendship, the ecological, spiritual, political… and history also’; the list was longer and included, more or less, everything. Art also.

It was indeed ironic to witness a public announcement of agents who had to be reminded a few times of the need for secrecy, or as Christov-Bakargiev stated at one point: ‘we’re not supposed to say anything’ – stunning to see this acted out with such deadpan composure. Her many previous projects as a curator promise, without a doubt, a stimulating, interesting documenta 13. And I share her apparent uncomfortableness with the demands of pre-pre-pre-press-attention-mongering.

So here’s a suggestion: why not just get rid entirely of all the blockbuster-type, way-in-advance ‘watch out, summer 2012’ teaser PR-politics? And instead just let everyone completely in the dark until a few weeks before? And I mean completely? Then, but only then, I would feel fully comfortable with the advisers being called ‘agents’.

in Reviews | 29 OCT 10
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