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Symposium ‘Expanding Thought-Collectives’: What Are the Origins of the Theories Underpinning the Last Four Documentas and How Do We Evaluate Them Today?

Symposium
documenta 1997 – 2017:

erweiterte Denkkollektive / expanding thought-collectives

17. and 18.07.2015

documenta Halle
Du-Ry-Str. 1 / am Friedrichsplatz
34117 Kassel, Germany

With: Carmen Amor, Karen Barad, Beatrice von Bismarck, Kristina Buch, Roger M. Buergel, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Peter Galison, David Joselit, Hiwa K, Lu Jie, Michael Lüthy, Sarat Maharaj, Oliver Marchart, Laura Zheng Ning, Ruth Noack, Nikos Papastergiadis, Griselda Pollock, Tino Sehgal, Raqs Media Collective / Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Adam Szymczyk, Wang Jianwei

The notion of what a contemporary art exhibition can and should be has fundamentally changed over the past twenty years. Exhibitions have evolved into a format that aims not only to present art, but also to communicate current thinking and theories to an increasingly global public. Each documenta is an occasion and opportunity for bringing specific modes of thinking, along with concurrent values and world-views, from their sites of production (e.g. academia) into society. These developments and the adjacent questions and problems posed are in the centre of this symposium. What are the origins of the theories underpinning the last four documentas and how do we evaluate them today? What thought styles (Denkstile) are at all compatible with the exhibition format? And how are the global aspirations of the exhibitions realised? These and further questions will be discussed with the Artistic Directors of the past four editions of documenta and the Artistic Director of the upcoming documenta 14 in dialogue with international guests from the fields of art, academia and theory.

Program

Friday, 17.07.2015

10.00–10.20
Welcome
Hortensia Völckers, Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Introduction
Dorothea von Hantelmann

10.20–10.40
Hegemonic Shifts: Situating documenta X and 11
Oliver Marchart

10.45–13.15
documenta X
From the international to the global
Catherine David, Lu Jie, Laura Zheng Ning, Wang Jianwei

14.30–17.00
Documenta11
Art in an emerging global society
Okwui Enwezor, Sarat Maharaj, Nikos Papastergiadis, Raqs Media Collective/Shuddhabrata Sengupt

17.30–18.30

Exhibitions: Where Thought-Collectives Collide
Peter Galison

Concert

22.00–23.00

M.A. Numminen and defunensemble
Verliebte Philosophen

Saturday, 18.07.2015

10.00–13.00
documenta 12
Migration of Form
Roger M. Buergel, Okwui Enwezor, David Joselit, Ruth Noack

14.00–16.30
dOCUMENTA (13)
Speculative Fabulations
Karen Barad, Kristina Buch, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Griselda Pollock, Tino Sehgal

17.00–18.30
documenta 14
Few Notes from an Extellectual
Carmen Amor, Hiwa K, Adam Szymczyk

18.30
Closing remarks
Beatrice von Bismarck, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Michael Lüthy

Introductions and moderation
Dorothea von Hantelmann, Michael Lüthy

The symposium is held in English with simultaneous translation into German.

Free admission

Please register in advance: symposium@documenta60.de

Conceived by Dorothea von Hantelmann, documenta visiting professor at the School of Art and Design Kassel

An event by the German Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the School of Art and Design Kassel

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