Dates & Events
Upcoming
Hans Hillmann, participant in documenta 3, representative of the Kassel School of Poster Art and pioneer of the graphic novel, would have celebrated his 100th birthday on October 25 - an occasion for the documenta archiv to present parts of his estate in a studio exhibition in the reading room.
As a celebration of the 100th birthday of the Kassel documenta artist Harry Kramer (1925-1997), the documenta archiv, together with the Museum für Sepulkralkultur and Hessen Kassel Heritage, is presenting kinetic sculptures, films, photographs and graphics from all phases of this universal artist's career. Neue Galerie, Kassel.
The artist Max Neuhaus coined the term “sound installation” around 1967. The two-day event initiated by the documenta forum looks at the history and present of this art form at documenta.
Archive
As the opening event of the “Revisitations” series, we are delighted to welcome Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13), and the artist Mario García Torres to the Fridericianum for a joint discussion.
On January 25, 2025, Harry Kramer would have turned 100. The documenta participant and Kassel art professor is considered one of the most fascinating artistic figures of the city. The anniversary evening offers an immersive journey into Kramer’s work and biography, spanning film, jazz, dance, and kinetic sculpture.
The Kassel Dokfest is showing the 14-hour documentary "exergue - on documenta 14", which celebrated its world premiere at this year's Berlinale. The 848-minute work by Greek filmmaker Dimitris Athiridis will be screened in seven two-hour blocks on three consecutive days and shown again on the weekend after the festival.
The book “Exhibition Politics: Die documenta und die DDR” by Alexia Pooth, published in the documenta archiv publication series, is both the subject and starting point of two panel discussions in Potsdam and Berlin.
On September 7, the documenta archiv will once again be taking part in the Kassel Museum Night.
Together with cultural scientist Alexia Pooth, we invite you to a filmic journey exploring divided Germany.
On March 23, the newly published volume "Exhibition Politics" by Alexia Pooth will be presented once again as part of the Leipzig Book Fair
The documenta archiv cordially invites you to take part in the nationwide DAY OF THE ARCHIVES, which will be held on March 2 and 3, 2024 under the theme 'Food and Drink'. As a member of the 'Archives in Northern Hesse' working group, we look forward to welcoming you to the Kassel Market Hall on Sunday, March 3, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
On February 21, we will present the latest publication in the documenta archiv's publication series, the book "Exhibition Politics. die documenta und die DDR" by Alexia Pooth. On this occasion, we cordially invite you to a panel discussion with the author and the art critic Eduard Beaucamp.
on February 21, 2024
at 7 pm
in the rotunda of the Fridericianum
Hanne Darboven (1941-2009) is one of the outstanding artists of the 20th century. Dietmar Rübel's lecture will focus on Hanne Darboven's works presented as part of the documenta, in particular her little-known filmic oeuvre. With an introduction by Luise von Nobbe (Curatorial Department, Fridericianum) and Julius Lehmann (Research Associate, documenta archiv).
The conference "IN | OUT" is dedicated to the complex mechanisms of selection in the context of the first documenta (1955). Curatorial decision-making processes, art-theoretical decisions, individual assessments of quality and personal networks, as well as economic interests and constraints will be discussed. At the same time, it is important to question the methodological and social relevance of the concept of canon.
A cinematic journey through time in the documenta exhibitions: The documenta archive presents highlights from its video collection as part of the Kassel Museum Night on September 2 and 3.
A cooperation of the Staatstheater Kassel with the documenta archiv: The Art Lecture on June 1 is dedicated to the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917 Berlin - 1943 Auschwitz), whose dramatic work "Leben? oder Theater? Ein Singespiel" was shown at documenta (13) in the Fridericianum through selected gouaches.
The ephemeral in the archive: As a Goethe Institut Fellow, Helga Lyubartovich has been researching the special genre of "ephemera" in the documenta archiv since the beginning of October. The focus is thus on daily printed matter such as brochures, leaflets, press releases, invitations or admission tickets. In her presentation, she provides insight into her research.
Guided tour for visitors with the artist. On 9 February, Mischa Kuball will personally provide insights into his working methods and the genesis of the project "nolde/kritik/documenta".
On 19 January and 9 February (both at 19:00) we will host two panel discussions to accompany the exhibition "nolde/kritik/documenta".
View the video recording.
Panel discussion on the exhibition nolde/kritik/documenta with Astrid Becker (connected via zoom), Birgitta Coers and Mischa Kuball
View the video recording
A project by documenta archiv, the Draiflessen Collection, the Nolde Foundation Seebüll and Mischa Kuball
[no-indent] Date: Friday, December 12, 2022, 7pm
[no-indent] Place: First Floor of the Fridericianum
[no-indent] Emil Nolde (1867-1956) is one of the most famous artists of European avant-garde. His current perception is shaped by historical mythmaking and its deconstruction. The Düsseldorf conceptual artist Mischa Kuball (* 1959), supported by the Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, set out to trace this ambivalent figure.
Guided tours of the exhibition "nolde/kritik/documenta" take place with our art educators Susanne Stein, Zaki Al-Maboren and Roland Knieg every Sunday at 4 pm.You are warmly invited!
The "Archive of Encounters" is a guest at ruruHaus for one week. The event explores possibilities of giving events of ephemeral and situational art a digital space.
A cooperation of the documenta archiv with the production community nota.
A cooperation between the documenta archiv and nota e.V.
Art Lecture & participatory foyer parcours on female artists & collaborators of the first documenta (1955) / cooperation with the Staatstheater Kassel
A joint research and exhibition project of the Center for Persecuted Arts and the documenta archiv Kassel. Parallel to documenta 15 in 2022, both institutions will take a critical, reflective look back at the beginnings of the major exhibition.
5.30 - 8.00 pm @ruruHaus, Kassel
Lecture by Andrea Pócsik on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, at 6:00 p.m.
Online via Zoom
In the context of the discussion series "From Vasarely to Off-Biennale: Hungarian artists at documenta".
This year the documenta archiv cooperates again with the Kassel Dokfest. We support the film "Jonas in the Fields" by Peter Sempel online on November 19, 2021 at 5 p.m.
Vennes Cheng, Sau Wai anchors her research in documenta X to examine the criticality of the exhibition’s curatorial impulses that are emerging belatedly in current Hong Kong twenty-three years later, when the city is undergoing brutal socio-political changes after the imposition of a new National Security Law by China in 2020. She proposes that the city and documenta X are intertwined in various ways.
The 3G-rules apply and facial masks are required.
In her lecture, the Hungarian cultural scientist Andrea Pócsik will show how the art world of the former Eastern Bloc state Hungary is represented in the holdings of the documenta archiv. She will focus on archiving as a process of producing of knowledge.
For the fourth year in a row, the European Association of Conservators (E.C.C.O.) is organizing the Restoration Day. With a total of three contributions, the documenta archiv is also taking part and shedding light on restoration work on materials from the Harry Kramer Archive.
Explorative talk with artist/researcher and pioneer of cyberfeminism Cornelia Sollfrank about the creation of an archive of the Old Boys Network (1997-2001).
Starting on Saturday, June 19th, 2021, guests can visit the Survival Room of the "Kassel-21 / Social Sculpture Lab" at the Neue Galerie in Kassel in the year of Beuys' anniversary. The participatory project takes Joseph Beuys' "Social Sculpture" into the present: developed by artist Shelley Sacks in collaboration with the documenta archiv and the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, it is a global laboratory that offers visitors the opportunity to engage with Beuys' expanded concept of art and its potential for the future both online and on site in Kassel.
The digital conference on June 11, 2021 is dedicated to the history of the first documenta exhibition (1955) and the connection of its curators to National Socialism. The conference is a collaboration between the Kunsthochschule Kassel/Universität Kassel and the documenta archiv and can be followed via livestream on Youtube.
The Kassel-21 / Social Sculpture Lab brings Joseph Beuys' Social Sculpture into the present. Developed by the artist Shelley Sacks for the documenta archiv, the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel / Neue Galerie and the city of Kassel, it sees itself as a global laboratory that offers visitors the opportunity to engage with Beuys' expanded concept of art and fill it with new content.
From May 06-08, 2021, the online symposium "ARCHIVE PROBEN" of the interdisciplinary research group notanarchive will take place.
The documenta archiv is pleased to present you the virtual Platform6 in honor of Okwui Enwezor via the link www.documenta-platform6.de starting today.
On occasion of the exhibition Emil Nolde - a critical approach by Mischa Kuball, the Draiflessen Collection invites you to an online round table on 21 January 2021 at 7 pm. Astrid Becker (Nolde Stiftung Seebüll), Birgitta Coers (documenta archivs), Mischa Kuball and Corinna Otto (Draiflessen Collection) will discuss the topic. The event will be moderated by Julia Voss (art critic and journalist). Participation is possible after registration at rueckmeldung@draiflessen.com by team.
From November 18 till November 27 the 37th Kassel DokfestOnline will take place. This year, the documenta archiv is a cooperation partner for Ulrike Ottingers movie "Paris Calligrammes" which will be online from November 22, 2020 for 6 days. For further information see www.kasselerdokfest.de or https://kasseler-dokfest.culturebase.org/.
The University of the Trees Lab Kassel invites to an earth forum on Thursday 03rd of September 2020 from 4 till 7 o'clock p.m., meeting point Dock 4 (after advance notification). The 'social' sculpture Earth Forum is a module of the University of Trees, initiated by Shelley Sacks (collaborator of Joseph Beuys and founder of the Social Sculpture Research Unit at Brooks University in Oxford). An Earth Forum lasts about 3 hours and up to 12 people can participate. Usually it takes place outdoors at different locations.
From September 1st to 6th, 45 cultural institutions open their doors with joint day tickets. The documenta archiv is participating from September 2nd to 6th, too.
On the occasion of the nationwide "Day of Archives", the working group "Archives in North Hesse" will be present with a stand in the Kasseler Markthalle on March 7, 2020 from 8.00 am to 2.00 pm.
Polluted water or dirty air, nuclear danger or dying forests, factory farming, climate change or the anthropocene.
In the complex cultural system that we call contemporary art, archives have come to stay. Over
The documenta archive stores thousands of unsolicited applications. While in 1972 a good 250 artists unsolicitedly and unsuccessfully applied to participate at documenta 5, there were already around 900 at documenta 7 and almost 1,500 at documenta 8.
"We know that there are too many functions for a single chair to fulfill."
The lecture presents the creation, implementation and documentation of the exhibition "Macho Man: Tell It to My Heart", poses questions about the identity of collections and analyzes their curatorial and institutional conditions using concrete examples.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the documenta archiv and the University of Kassel have initiated a joint project that, for the first time, reflects the two institutions Bauhaus and documenta in comparison.
Reenactments of exhibitions have become an increasingly dominant factor within the art world in recent years.
The symposium deals with the implicit narratives of modernity of Bauhaus and the documenta exhibitions.
The lecture will look back on 25 years of curatorial mediation work within contemporary art and examine its relevance in the here and now.
There are regular guided tours through the exhibition "bauhaus I documenta. Vision und Marke" in the Neue Galerie, Kassel by the documenta archivs team.
Neue Galerie, Kassel
Bauhaus and documenta are two globally successful cultural brands that stand for a cosmopolitan, innovative and modern Germany.
The exhibition "bauhaus | documenta. Vision and Brand" is accompagnied by some events.
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The painter Fritz Winter (1905-1976) was present with a body of work at each of the first three documenta exhibitions.
Günther Becker’s familiar 1955 photograph of Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s Die Kniende (1911) in the rotunda of the Museum Fridericianum serves as an important record of documenta’s beginnings.
The system of art has changed decisively since the second half of the 19th century. Innovations by “independent” artists are recognized and supported by newly developed “patrons,” professions, and institutions.
We offer you a guided tour to our exhibition "In the documenta archiv #5 - “Please take off your shoes.” - Participatory art at documenta 5".
The archive’s connections to artistic and curatorial work are variegated and complex. While the idea of the archive, on the one hand, is informed and shaped by institutions dedicated to conservation, research, and exhibition,...
In view of the future documenta Institute and on the occasion of current developments in restoration and conservation science, the documenta archiv is organizing an international conference at the documenta-Halle, Kassel, from November 22 - 24, 2018.
The institution of the archive and the demands of the contemporary seem to stand in diametrical opposition to one another: How can the eternal past of that which is archived be connected with the fleeting present of the contemporary?
In the sixties of the 20th century, the first wave of the so-called participatory art took place. The fifth documenta in 1972, directed by Harald Szeemann (1933 - 2005), offered an important platform for this newly emerging art form.
“Please take off your shoes” was requested of people who wanted to have a look inside the red wooden pavilion that was created by the artists David Medalla and John Dugger in the garden of the Museum Fridericianum for documenta 5 in 1972.
We offer you a guided tour to our exhibition "In the documenta archiv #4 - documenta 1968 - a hot summer? - Documents from the preparation phase of documenta 4"
Which guiding concepts and leading intellectual figures characterize documenta? What influence on social do have established actors in the art world and the press? Which events, artists and works of art stand out?
The documenta archiv opens from 5 pm to 1 am for the Kassel Museum Night and offers a varied programme with guided tours, films and an art book antiquariat.
documenta 4 (1968) was advertised as the "youngest documenta ever". In retrospect, however, it appears less visionary than expected and her artistic position weakened by democratization processes.
Not only is the actual exhibition part of the representation of a documenta, but also its long preparation phase. Even before the opening, positions are taken, theories are posed and ...
We offer you a guided tour to our exhibition "In the documenta archiv #3 - Journey to the Planet Ars - artist portraits by Heinz Günter Mebusch".
Since the 1990s the documenta archiv owns an important collection of over 200 high-quality photographic artist portraits.
"Outsider Art" was represented for the first time at the 5th documenta in 1972 in the form of "artwork of the insane".
In the France of the 1968 years, it was common for academics to ask, “D’où parles-tu?” – “From where do you speak?,” by which was meant the theoretical and methodological location of the speaker(s).
We offer you a guided tour to our exhibition "In the documenta archiv #2". The guided tour takes place on May, 14th at 4 pm. Admission is free.
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote in “Mal d’Archive”, 1995: “There is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory. Effective democratization can always be measured by this essential criterion...”
The focus of interest is an approach to exhibition history that, to some extent, breaks with museum-led conventions of “historical reconstruction".
As part of the "Nordhessischen Woche der Archive" (North Hessian Week of Archives), we are offering guided tours to the documenta archiv.
At the 5th documenta in 1972, Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) set up an "Office for Direct Democracy by Referendum". Five years later, during documenta 6, he held an international forum at the Museum Fridericianum.
In her illustrated lecture Liza Weber will test the well-worn hypothesis of the first documenta exhibition of 1955 as a rehabilitation of modern art once deemed “degenerate” under the National Socialist regime.
Since documenta 11 (2002) for which Mark Nash was a co-curator, much curatorial and critical discussion has focused on the relevance of a post-colonial problematic to contemporary art and curating today.
The concept of collective memory regarding the archive of a museum or an art center is not an obvious concept.
The documenta archiv has created a 7-minute short film with the title “documenta 14 entýposis” for the 34th Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival. It is a multifaceted, varied and informative collage of many moments from the documenta Summer
On the occasion of the completion of the cataloguing of the personal papers by Hans Hillmann, a documenta 3 artist, the documenta archiv is pleased to announce the comic concert to his graphic novel “Fly Paper” orchestrated by yam yabasha ensemeles from Berlin at the Gloria Cinema, Kassel on November, 5th 2017, 5 pm.
The documenta archiv presents photographs by Bernd Schlake in a small cabinet exhibition at its art library. The images were taken during the 100 days of document 14 in Kassel.
Like in the previous year, the documenta archiv takes part again at the Frankfurt Book Fair as part of THE ARTS+. The Creative Business Festival of the Book Fair is held this year under the motto Be Bold.
Kasseler Bank, Kassel
A new immediate approach to the very first document in 1955 has been created by the Art History and Theory department of the Kunsthochschule Kassel.
In the 1980ies the documenta archiv took over the curatorial bequest of Arnold Bode (1900-1977), founder of the documenta (1955) and initiator of the documenta archiv (1961).
Joseph Beuys, the man with the hat, known for his use of felt and the Fettecke, or corner of fat—thirty years after his death he appears as a visionary ahead of his time.
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New Gallery of Art, Shanghai
A selection of objects shown in March of 2017 in Beijing are on display at the New Gallery of Art in Shanghai.
Half a century ago, the appointment to the directorial team of documenta was a particular honor. With documenta 5, the first of two exhibitions in which Prof. Klaus Honnef participated, this was to change:
Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Beijing, Chaoyang District, South Street
The documenta archiv is the main lender for a large exhibition on the history of the documenta showing almost 600 objects in an exhibition space of 1500 square meters.
Museum for Sepulchral Culture, Weinbergstrasse 25-27, Kassel
In cooperation with the documenta archiv, the Museum for Sepulchral Culture honors the 20th anniversary of the death of Harry Kramer with a cabinet exhibition.
Kunsttempel Kassel, Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse 177
The third edition of the Festival des Grafischen Erzählens (Festival for Graphic Narration) presents for the first time original drawings and sketches by the graphic artist Hans Hillmann (1925-2014) from his classic illustration of Dashiell Hammett’s story “Fly Paper”.
To date, no video footage exists of the first trailblazing documenta exhibition in 1955. All the more spectacular, therefore, is the subsequent creation of a 70-minute film documentation based on original photographs from the documenta archiv
Goethe Institute, Athens
documenta 14 will take place in Athens from April 8 to July 16, 2017. On this occasion, the Goethe Institut will invites the public of Athens to take a look at documenta with its history of over 60 years.