About

When Liliana Gómez, Mi You and Felix Vogel were appointed to professorships at the University of Kassel, the documenta institute started its research. Under the leadership of founding director Heinz Bude, a non-university research institute with international pretensions is being created. It is dedicated to research about the multifaceted history and respective presence of the documenta in the context of global art. Particularly, the tremendous success of this contemporary art exhibition is one of the central puzzling questions considering that the documenta is serving as a model for the more than two hundred contemporary art exhibitions that exist worldwide today. Art at exhibitions of this kind can, in principle, be anything. It can vary from Caravans placed in the urban space, trees planted along the streets, or people from an emerging country staying on-site for the duration of the exhibition. Within places of contemporary art, political intentions, social needs and artistic statements seemingly come together. Research at the documenta institute is amazed by this: What drives people to contemporary art exhibitions? What transformations has the art field undergone within the mode of this specific type of exhibition? What does the biennialization of the world mean for the self-thematization of contemporary societies?

For the documenta institute, the documenta is undoubtedly not only the object but also the motivation for research. The new and different aspects of artistic realizations, that are presented in the context of this "museum of 100 days" contribute to scientific interest and excitement in large parts. Every observation is at the same time part of the matter. This blurring relation sharpens the research at the documenta institute. Mediation is an art that guides science. By addressing different publics in a transdisciplinary way, research at the documenta-Institut sets itself in motion. Art lovers, participants of the discourse and research colleagues are equally addressed and involved. Therefore, research at the institute is always at the same time research about and with the people involved in contemporary art exhibitions: as audiences, curators, artists, distributors, collectors, critics, as innkeepers, law enforcement officers, cab drivers, street sweepers, or as completely uninvolved citizens.

At the end, when the planned new building has been erected and the research has made a name for itself, the institute will rest on three pillars: on the collection of the archive, which has been gathering all kinds of materials of the respective documenta exhibitions since the beginning of the 1960s, on fundamental research on the format of contemporary art exhibitions and on mediation, which brings the whole together as a variable entity referring to the various areas of justification.