Issue 33 / June 2017
ed. Nanne Buurman, Dorothee Richter

documenta: Curating the History of the Present

On the occasion of documenta’s 14th edition, this special issue scrutinizes the ways in which the Kassel-based periodic exhibition has been contributing to curating the history of the present since its inception in 1955. From diverse perspectives, the authors engage with questions of how documenta’s iterations played a significant role not only in the making of a history of contemporary art but also in the canon of the relatively young field of curatorial and exhibition studies. The texts in this issue call attention to how it not only scripted paradigmatic models of subjectivity but also gradually widened its scope from a Eurocentric vision to a more worldly frame of reference, provoking reflections on its role in the globalization of the arts and its entanglement in (neo)colonial and (neo)liberal power relations in capitalism at large.

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