exergue - on documenta 14

Hosted every five years in the German city of Kassel since 1955, documenta is one of the preeminent international exhibitions in contemporary art, though recent events have posed existential threats to its future. In 2013, Polish curator Adam Szymczyk was appointed artistic director of the fourteenth edition, sharing the title “Learning from Athens” and a concept that split the event with the Greek capital — then still in the throes of EU-mandated austerity. Bold and visionary, documenta 14 also proved to be complex, controversial, and costly.

For two years leading to its presentation, Greek documentary filmmaker Dimitris Athridis was granted near total access to the behind-the-scenes labour of Szymczyk and his team (including Paul B. Preciado, director of TIFF ’23’s Orlando, My Political Biography, and 2019 and 2022 Toronto Biennial Senior Curator Candice Hopkins), as they tirelessly and passionately worked to realize an experimental mega-exhibition driven by themes of colonialism, indigeneity, and migration.

Structured into 14 compulsively watchable episodes (screening over three consecutive days), exergue – on documenta 14 follows artist studios visits, negotiations with partners, historical excavations, and the rising ideological tension between creative expression and economic demands. With Athridis’ fly-on-the-wall approach, both an astonishing transparency and suspense attend the proceedings, especially when things get messy. Szymczyk cuts a fascinating figure in his unbounded determination to question the value and limits of political art within a publicly funded institution.

Humble in its construction and less daunting than its 840-minute runtime might suggest, exergue is nonetheless an epic, unprecedented, and ultimately non-judgemental record, provoking debates about efforts to pursue and advance art at the highest level within increasingly conservative contexts.

ANDRÉA PICARD