ART

Greece crisis draws Documenta art show to Athens

As Greece and the EU negotiate a way out of debt crisis, Germany's largest contemporary art fair is planning a show in Athens. Director Adam Szymczyk tells DW he chose Greece because it was in crisis.

DW: Does the current debt crisis in Greece have an impact on Documenta?

Adam Szymczyk:I don't know how it influences Documenta. I think the decision to organize Documenta between Kassel and Athens was largely motivated by the political developments in Greece. When I made this proposal in 2013, certain lines of this narration were already drawn.

So the fact that we have been overexcited over the last couple of weeks about the suddenly accelerating developments doesn't mean that this was unexpected. Nobody knew exactly what was going to happen, but something had to happen. So it's happening now and it is very difficult to say how this will influence Documenta, but we are still in Athens and we are going to continue until the end.

What is your opinion about ties between Greece and Germany at the moment?

Relations, as you know, are pretty tense and potentially they could be less tense. It depends a little bit on the politicians in both countries, how they are going to carry on with this kind of public ritual of negotiations, political decisions, and the steps that need to be taken or may not be taken.

I am not a politician; I am a curator, so I' m trying to think about the exhibition that is going to happen in two years. I have already started with a performance in Kassel, with Hiwa K and Carmen Amor, an artist from Iran and a Spanish flamenco singer and myself in the role of alter ego of the artist, who actually walked from Iraq in 1996. The first country in Europe that he entered was Greece and that's how we started discussing this.

So in a way there can be many, many different connections found to this situation. But we don't want to fall into illustrating the crisis, because our premise is that the true image of the crisis doesn't really exist - and it should not exist. It is more like putting yourself in a position of being in crisis. So, yes, Documenta is in crisis because we have a crisis - in Germany and in Greece.

What are your plans for Documenta?

The plans are quite simple. We have established two offices and we are working with about 20 to 30 people right now. Half of them are in Athens and half are in Kassel and these two teams are talking to each other. We are proceeding with the discussion about possible content and the main lines of the exhibition in both places.

I guess we're going to have to make some choices about artists and other practicians who are going to be in Documenta by the end of this year, and next year we are going to engage in the process of producing new works, developing ideas for new works, and also working on those parts of the exhibition that are more historical in nature.

At the same time we are going to publish a magazine which is a continuation of Marina Fokidi's"South as a State of Mind," a magazine that Marina, who is now part of the Documenta team, founded in Athens a couple of years.

The four issues of the magazine that are going to come out - the first one hopefully by the beginning of October this year - are going to be preparatory steps for Documenta. So both the editorial process of the magazine and the curatorial process of the exhibition will be in dialogue.  dw de