documenta 14 6.38

In 1955, ten years after the end of the Second World War, the first documenta was organized in Kassel—an exhibition of Western European modern art initiated by a group of art enth usiasts led by artist, art professor, and curator Arnold Bode (1900–77). Over the course of the previous thirteen iterations of documenta, the exhibition has been evolving constantly to become a place of major debates on contemporary culture as well as addressing its current sociopolitical contexts. Artistic Director Adam Szymczyk has proposed a two-fold structure, reflected in the working title Learning from Athens, as the guiding principle for documenta 14. In 2017, Kassel and the Greek capital host the exhibition on an equal footing: their diff erent locations and divergent historical, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds inspire and influence the individual works of art. documenta 14 seeks to encompass a multitude of voices in, between, and beyond the two cities in which it is situated, reaching outside the European context f rom the vantage point of the Mediterranean metropolis of Athens, where Africa, the Middle East, and Asia come face to face. The physical and metaphorical distance between Kassel and Athens fundamentally alters the way visitors experience documenta 14—bringing into play feelings of loss and longing whileredefining their understanding of what such an exhibition can be.