Documenta 13 – Information as an annoying scavenger hunt

Documenta 13 opened on Saturday, June 9, 2012, one day after the opening match of the European Football Championship. In one German city alone, 400,000 people attended the fan zone for this opening match, and tens of millions more likely watched the game at public viewings across Germany.

Certainly not a compelling comparison, but a comparison with the visitor numbers of the world's most important art institution besides the Venice Biennale is nevertheless interesting.

At the opening of documenta, “thousands of visitors” from all over the world were in Kassel – that sounds more like a four-figure than a six-figure number. And that's exactly the case: Statisticians estimate that a total of around 750,000 people will visit documenta, almost 550,000 of them from Germany. Documenta runs for 100 days, which means around 7,500 visitors per day, of which around 5,500 are from the host country.

5,500 visitors? That's how many people fit into the Schützenfest tent at Munich's Oktoberfest, which is booked out weeks in advance. When you consider that almost 60 percent of the visitors are regulars, the number of art-interested newcomers among them dwindles to about the same as what you'd find in a rather small disco or a fairly large pub. It seems that German citizens don't have a great deal of interest in this "center of the art world.".

What is the reason for this?

Are the entrance fees too high? Hardly. For €20, the average visitor can spend 10 hours at documenta. Students and other eligible groups pay €14, and families with up to three children pay €50 (what happens to the fourth child?). But for that price, you get a whole day of art ; every pop concert is much shorter and many times more expensive.

Too few artists

Certainly not; around 175 artists from 55 different countries are exhibiting at documenta 13. Only 8 of them are on the current "World Ranking of Art" (two of whom are no longer with us), so documenta lives up to its mission of providing visitors with a representative overview of what is moving global art and contemporary artists. If various critics of documenta see things quite differently, this fact should certainly not deter anyone from visiting documenta, but rather further stimulate discussion and interest.

But who exactly does documenta want to introduce these artists to? Does the average art lover, who isn't an insider in the art world, receive any information beforehand about these avant-garde artists that might pique their interest? Probably not: If the average person wants to get an overview of the approximately 175 participating artists on the documenta website, it's not exactly easy.

First, he has to find the artists, for which he will probably click the "Participants" button on the website's homepage (there is no "Artists" button). A list of 87 terms appears, mostly professions, written consecutively and connected by commas. Somewhere in the middle are the artists, listed twice: once as "Artist" and once as "Artist/Artist (female)." Around 20 names appear under "Artist," and no one knows why. The remaining artists (some of those listed under "Artist" are included here, some are not) are then found under "Artist/Artist (female)," in an alphabetical list.

If the artistic layman then clicks on one of the names, e.g., that of Anna Boghiguian, he learns the following:

“Anna Boghiguian
, artist,
venue: Fridericianum.
Anna Boghiguian, born in Cairo in 1946, has lived in Montreal and Toronto and currently divides her time between Cairo, India, and Europe. She studied art and music at Concordia University, Montreal, and political science and economics at the American University in Cairo. She participated in the Sharjah Biennial (2011) and the Istanbul Biennial (2009). Her artist's books have been published by Fata Morgana and American University Press, Cairo.”

Unfortunately, this still tells him nothing about Anna Boghiguian's artistic work, and this method of information dissemination has another major drawback: there's no continuous display; each artist has to be clicked on individually. 175 clicks back and forth, and afterwards, the average person has absolutely no idea what kind of art all these artists actually create.

Is it too much to ask for an artist profile on a website about an art exhibition? Isn't that what the catalog is for? Yes, of course, there are even three catalogs.

Catalogue 1 of 3 is called “The Book of Books”. It has around 750 pages and costs approximately €68. Here, “essays, artistic projects and the core themes of dOCUMENTA (13) are brought together, the entire publication series 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts is reproduced and supplemented by essays by the artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev as well as by Chus Martínez, the head of the department and member of the core group.”

Catalogue 2 of 3 is “The Logbook”, with about 450 pages for about €30, in which Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has mainly documented her work in the run-up to documenta since 2010.

Catalogue 3 of 3 is called “The Companion Book,” and this approximately 350-page volume with around 250 illustrations, priced at about €24, finally focuses on the artists: “The concise guide is entirely dedicated to the artists and presents all participants in an illustrated essay, each written by one of the dOCUMENTA (13) agents in close collaboration with the artists themselves. … Equipped with an exhibition map and brief descriptions of all exhibition venues and projects, the concise guide is an indispensable tool for all visitors to dOCUMENTA (13) as well as for all those who cannot see the exhibition in person.”

Certainly not an exorbitant price for a work of this scope, but unfortunately, as the only information available about the "artistic content" of this documenta, it is a reason for many people to pursue their interest in art elsewhere. Moreover, it is sadly impossible for some people in life situations who could greatly benefit from the "silent power of art that may transform us" to visit documenta: documenta 13 is not wheelchair accessible.

Furthermore, it's not unreasonable to expect a website promoting an art exhibition to briefly introduce the curious prospective visitor to the artists and their works. Other exhibition organizers manage to do this.