The documenta as a space for participation (Working title)

As a singular instance of contextualization and mediation of contemporary art, the exhibition series documenta has from the outset been particularly interested in the relationship between art and space, which must accordingly be placed at the center of praxeological reception research that seeks to reconstruct the concrete reception and participation practices within the framework of a spatial arrangement and its practical-performative design at the respective documenta exhibitions in a methodologically controlled manner, to interpret them and subsequently identify patterns within the diversity of these practices. In contrast to previous empirical studies of documenta, the aim of the project is not to examine the resources and competences of the audience at the various exhibitions in order to explain participation in documenta. Instead, the concrete participation practices are to be analyzed as idiosyncratic, polysemic and productive practices of the actors on the basis of photographic material. To this end, the project draws on image-hermeneutic methods of qualitative social research. The photographs document material-bodily, interactive and atmospheric constellations, which are to be analyzed interpretatively in their own logic with recourse to segment and constellation analysis and then contextualized. In this way, the project hopes to gain insights into the different modes of participation in the exhibited artworks and programs in connection with their spatial arrangement in the respective exhibitions.