Documenta's Swan Song: "Exergue" Documents the Fall of an Era

In Dimitris Athiridis' 14-hour documentary "Exergue," Adam Szymczyk and his curatorial team prepare for the 2017 Documenta amidst global crises. The film critiques the institution's massive scale and the ethos of distribution over curation. Despite Szymczyk's charismatic leadership and the inclusion of remarkable artworks, the 15th edition of Documenta in 2022 exposed the fragility of the organization, leading to its demise. "Exergue" serves as a character study of Szymczyk's generation, revealing the paradoxes of an art world grappling with societal turmoil, always seeming to be on the brink of collapse.

The Documenta's Final Chapter: 'Exergue' Documents the End of an Era

As the 14-hour-long documentary "Exergue," chronicling the making of the 2017 Documenta, unfolds, its narrator, Paul B. Preciado, declares: "This Documenta will be unlike any other... It will be the last one... A Documenta for the end times."

Dimitris Athiridis's film, premiered at the Berlinale, is an uncanny reminder of a time not so long ago when the world seemed on the brink of collapse, albeit in a different way than today. Spanning four years, Athiridis captured 800 hours of footage, following artistic director Adam Szymczyk and his curatorial team as they pieced together "Learning from Athens," an exhibition that took place both in Kassel, Germany, and in Athens, Greece.

"Exergue" offers a glimpse into an art world grappling with the constant presence of impending doom. As the curators navigate crises, including gunshots in Beirut, arson attacks by alt-right groups, and the Paris terrorist attacks, Szymczyk's voiceover reflects: "We have to be more radical, like never before."

Despite the ongoing turmoil, the party Szymczyk refers to continues to end and resume. It's the same party that ended with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, only to return in turbo mode with pop-up art events in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. It's a party that's so grotesque that it must constantly end for us to bear its existence.

The premiere of "Exergue" comes at a time when the renowned Documenta organization appears to be in its final throes, following the controversies surrounding its fifteenth edition. The 2022 exhibition, curated by ruangrupa, included anti-Semitic imagery that sparked outrage in Germany, while the appointment of the director for Documenta 16 was marred by accusations of anti-Semitism.

In an open letter, Ranjit Hoskotés, a member of the finding committee, resigned, citing the organization's unwillingness to engage in a nuanced discussion about anti-Semitism and its restrictions on empathy. He lamented the loss of moral compass within the institution.

In the same month, "Artforum" dismissed its editor-in-chief, and key members of the editorial staff staged a walkout, signaling a wave of upheaval within modernist institutions. It seemed that the party might finally be over, not due to #MeToo, austerity measures, or the pandemic, but rather due to a strange and deliberate mobilization of guilt under the shadow of real political violence.

Throughout its 14-hour runtime, "Exergue" becomes an intimate character study of Szymczyk and his generation. The Polish curator, with his lanky frame and distinctive style, embodies the zeitgeist of the 2000s. He is a dreamer, a fantast, and perhaps the director of the last Documenta.

The film reveals a cohort of creative minds whose powerlessness in the face of practicalities is contrasted with their brilliance in projection. Szymczyk's charm captivates the viewer, even as the documentary's sheer length becomes a test of patience.

"Exergue" deftly captures the "pot-ness" that Szymczyk both acknowledges and denies. Documenta 14's primary flaw was its excessive size, both financially and artistically. Szymczyk's insistence on broadening the exhibition's identity matrix, distributing funds to as many artists as possible, reveals the ethos of this curatorial team, who see "curating" as a form of economic redistribution.

This curatorial approach has since become a recipe for major exhibitions, including the upcoming Venice Biennale, which features over 300 artists, primarily from the Global South. Szymczyk dubs it "global shopping," noting that while his own Documenta edition would do "the same, but more," it would also encompass realism in the vein of Gustave Courbet's socialist realism.

As the budgetary issues become insurmountable, Szymczyk organizes a meeting at the "Währungskonklave," where the German currency was reconstituted in 1948. The revelation of "money" as an arbitrary construct offers a provisional solution to their problems, a move that combines intellectual ambition with practical absurdity.

Preciado's quip about "the last Documenta" echoes less like a grim prediction than a statement of intent. Documenta 14 almost succeeded in its accelerationist plot to dismantle modernism and capitalism, if only the art hadn't been as good as it was.

For as Daniel Birnbaum remarked in "Artforum," amidst the allegory and auto-ethnography, there was a "show-within-a-show," a trove of compelling and insightful works. Seven years on, indelible memories remain: Alina Szapownikow's collaboration with Lorenza Böttner, Stanley Whitney's color fields, Vivian Suter's installation in the Acropolis Park, and Jonas Mekas's projections in the train station.

The artists featured in Documenta 14 have since become fixtures across the European institutional landscape, and the issues raised by Preciado continue to resonate. While no one could have anticipated it at the time, Documenta 14 left an indelible mark, its impact persisting long after its conclusion.

In contrast, Documenta 15 lacked the exhibition-within-the-exhibition, and its anti-Semitism scandal could not have occurred in the same way in 2017 due to the complex object ontology that Documenta 14 had established within the field of contemporary art.

When theorist "Bifo" Berardi's performance was canceled in Documenta 14 for comparing the refugee crisis to the Holocaust, a new performance was staged in response. Roetstaele's explanation of the German government's reluctance to include the recovered estate of Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt in the exhibition highlights the government's desire to use the paintings as an opportunity to expiate guilt publicly.

Five years later, Taring Padi's caricature presented another such opportunity, but this time ruangrupa, who had successfully avoided the art world "pot," lacked the tools to defend themselves. The aftermath revealed art reduced to an arbitrary outcome of community activity, an approach that spells disaster for the art world.

Documenta 14 also shared the pretension of seeking real social impact in Athens, fostering relationships beyond being a transient phenomenon. However, Szymczyk's desire to have both cultural prestige and grassroots credibility proved to be a double-edged sword.

In the end, the fundamental question remains: what impact could Documenta possibly have had on Athens, the refugees, or the world at large? Was its presence in Athens a form of crisis tourism? Yes. But it was also an art exhibition, an intellectual, political, and artistic proposal that was rare in its scope and ambition.

"Exergue" captures the efforts of sharp and creative minds playing a game that could not be won, a testament to the constant struggle of the art world to find its place in a world on the brink of collapse.