Date: 3.2016 — 9.2017
Location: Athens & Kassel (various venues)
Responsible for projects with: Rasheed Araeen, Andreas Angelidakis, Vija Celmins, Agnes Denes, Manthia Diawara, Aboubakar Fofana, Irena Haiduk, Regina Jose Galindo, Rick Lowe, Rosalind Nashashibi, Joaquin Orellana, Ben Patterson, Dan Peterman, Angelo Plessas, Pope.L, Postcommodity, Lala Rukh, and Stanley Whitney.
“Learning from Athens” was the subtitle of documenta14. So what does one learn exactly from wandering the city with the Chicagoan artist through the scrapyards of Eleonas or the refugee camp at Skaramagas? That in the midst of economic crisis and social exclusion one can still see the Acropolis’ sacred rock? And how does one implement curatorial notions of movement, transposition, and dislocation both at an institutional level and through ideas, people and creation? How can these ideas be enacted through collaboration, research, and the work itself?
In early 2016, the invited artists arrived in Athens to witness the city’s classical past at odds with present-day economic precarity. We introduced our international colleagues to the city’s layered shifting history, its complex present, its capacity for sudden acts of politicized violence, its famous mythologies, and a vibrant artistic tradition. We discovered how to work on concurrent, multi-faceted projects that required in-depth primary research and close cooperation with the bureaucratic mechanisms of municipal and government authorities.
In budget and scale, it was by far the largest cultural project I have had the privilege to work for. The exhibition attracted over one million visitors in Athens and Kassel. It created new social networks, empowered disadvantaged and overlooked minorities, and challenged many preconceptions on the nature of contemporary art. Its artistic legacy gifted moments of transcendence, passing financial recriminations, and perhaps for some, a glimpse of the sublime.