DOCUMENTA 14 – KASSEL 2017

Above all, human gathering, this event which takes place every 5 years allows artists' works of the whole world to meet an international public consisted not only of professionals but also enlightened amateurs and simple novices. 

A camp of contemporary art welcoming all the looks, just like the recurring topical subject in the speeches: the refugees. 

Obviously raise the questions of identity, uprooting, past exiles, housing environment ... In summary, find its place in the world. 

The first work which comes to mind is the installation of the South Korean Kimsooja, "Bottari" in Fridericianum on Friedrichsplatz and this reflection of the artist, I quote: 

"Homeland is not a topographically definable place, but a state of consciousness and belonging. »

Imagine what could contain our bundles if we have to leave a native land to find a new one which would be spiritual. Of what would we need to feel at home anywhere in the world? 

Due to many experiences and introspections, it seems that the house is based in our hearts and that it is thus transportable anywhere, on the condition of having this immense feeling to be above all an inhabitant of the universe and not simply of a continent, a country, a city, a village ... 

“Wherever Kimsooja finds herself to be, her body is simultaneously her studio and her home.” 

Open our mind to 360 degrees to never again feel lost ... 

Some people will think that you should have never lived on war and that it is difficult to put yourself instead of these thousand refugees who run away from a territory become mortal ... 

Actually ... 

But all this is so widely evoked in this Documenta that it seemed interesting to present the emigration under other perspectives, other constraints ... The expatriation for example. Widespread and rarely so joyful as we could imagine it. 

Even there the feeling of banishment can have disastrous consequences such as the depression ... 

The running towards the El Dorado can turn out disappointing. 

One of the numerous quotations of Dmitry Prigov recovering the walls of Press und Informationszentrum and of those overhanging staircases leading to Leder-Meid Apartment.

In an old ruined apartment, we discover some Apostolo Georgiou's paints hung on here and there in a logic of concordance with the various rooms of the housing environment. 

Do not expect a palace ... Savour the moment of the surprise! 

Beautiful emotion also when we reach the first floor of Neue Galerie.

Read and feel ...
It’s the choice of every visitor to take time to stop in front of this isolated letter ... 

What if we go all madmen? 

It is with a lot of tenderness, benevolence and empathy that the Chinese director Wang Bing films for four hours about fifty men locked into a psychiatric hospital.

The Gloria Kino proposes a retrospective on this film-maker specialist of so long documentaries as we seem to share the lives of the protagonists. A total dumping in a parallel life which, in "Til Madness Do Us Part", seems to forget the human dignity. This hospital seems worse than our prisons ... 

Would it be the purpose of Wang Bing that the termination? Nevertheless, we take ourselves of attachment for these sick whose behavior reminds us our child's worst stupid things ... It could almost seem funny if we forgot tragic fates in which madness can take us ... 

Where to live when we become dangerous for the others and for oneself? 

And if each built a house in its image?

It is what proposes us the Athenian Christos Papoulias to the Palace Bellevue by attributing to every character a particular housing environment. We see reigning the childish fears there such as attics and other antics ... 

A pure moment of whim and of return towards our fantasies. 

If you had to create a mask caricaturing your place in this world, which you would choose to put forward? 

In Hessischeslandesmuseum, discover the answers of a western family of India photographed by the artist Gauri Gill: "Acts of appearance". 

It is not a question here of realizing a mask representing a divinity but that of the reality of our lives. 

So, it was difficult to remain insensible in this image in particular ... 

The man and his mask of beggar which makes wear, just like our European homeless people a mask of dog to the child who accompanies him. 

Poignant, obvious, universal ... 

After having found an identity, we shall know where to go? 

The Cinestar of the Karlsplatz proposes “I had nowhere to go "according to the Jonas Mekas's autobiographical novel which the war forced to the exile. 

A continuation of grey screens punctuated by some images of objects of the everyday life on a unique background sound: the voice of Jonas Mekas reciting his diary. 

Suite à de telles émotions, où aller ? 

Pour ceux et celles qui, cette année, auraient eu la chance de commencer par Athènes, nous vous laissons nous raconter ... 

Ceci n’est qu’un court récit subjectif sur un événement qui en demanderait bien plus long. Lié à une expérience personnelle, il n’est que le reflet d’une sensibilité particulière nourrit par des histoires passées que les sens ont emmagasinées ... 

Ce n’est donc qu’une « Documenta » parmi des milliers d’autres ... 

A vous d’inventer la vôtre ! (Avant le 17 Septembre 2017)