Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
more
Seven reasons why the documenta 12 will be a revolution were provided a couple of weeks ago in Die Zeit by Hanno Rauterberg, who expressed his delight that art can finally be art again. But it's not as easy as that. There's now an eighth fact that deserves to be officially mentioned – the new use of the term "official". The "official" list of artists at the documenta 12 will be announced shortly before the opening – as was the case in 1997 and 2002. Until then, only three participants have been confirmed by the documenta office: Ferran Adriá, Artur Zmijewski and Ricardo Basbaum.
Nonetheless, there's a bunch of names going around and some contributions to the documenta have already been reported on at length, for instance the project of the Chinese Ai Wei Wei. But he's not an official documenta artist. The difference is difficult to explain, as became clear to me at a recent dinner with artists, art dealers and collectors at Art Cologne. It took a while for me to convince the others of the official limitations on the official documenta artists as I understand them.
In order to facilitate communication, I'm going to recommend a terminological clarification. Artists whose participation is known to all but who have not yet been officially confirmed will be called "public" documenta artists. It is known publicly that Ai Wei Wei is inviting 1001 Chinese to Kassel and that Sanja Ivekovic is going to plant a huge poppy field on the Friedrichsplatz, which at the moment is a huge construction site – but none of that is official.
One variety of the "public" participant could be called the "silent participant." Everyone knows that these people are coming, their names have been made public, but nobody's writing about them. One example: Imogen Stidworthy. Her participation has been talked about from the beginning but nobody seems to care. Another category of silent participant are those whose participation is known but whose names have not yet been made public. Zoe Leonard's name surfaced this week in the information service. Her contribution to the documenta 1992 – pictures of female genitalia hung between the rococo paintings in the Neuen Galerie - was almost a scandal. The participation of Monika Baers, one of the most interesting German painters of the moment, seems to only interest her gallery so far.
Then there are the "probable" participants. These are artists from the 1960s and 70s who were presented in short portraits in the first ever "documenta 12 magazine," which came out recently, and then there are those who participated in the exhibition curated by Buergel/Noack called "Die Regierung" (the government), some of whose names had already been published in Vienna's Standard at the beginning of March.
Official means something like "confirmed". The public and silent participants are sure to have received "real" invitations from the documenta which, however, have not been made public. So in fact they are official but in a sense still silent participants. And then there are artists whose names can not be made public because nobody knows them – for example an anonymous Persian miniaturist-painter from the 14th century. But maybe he'll speak up yet – officially speaking, each participant is allowed to announce his or her participation.
That so many names remain unpublished is nothing short of a miracle. Obviously it's not that important to know them already. The curators should in fact be pleased – if we are to take their official plea for a leisurely consideration of art seriously – to see that the documenta is of limited interest to the hot greedy market. But because our coverage is not only aimed at those representing the commercial art scene, we have assembled an unofficial list of artists and are asking our readers to add to it take away from it, shouls they know better than we do. We're in a position to respond quickly, seeing as we don't have to let everything be officially confirmed.
*
documenta 12 takes place in Kassel from June 16 - September 23, 2007.
This article originally appeared in artnet on April 26, 2007. Translation: nb
RSS
Twitter
Western museums are opening their halls for huge state exhibitions in collaboration with non-democratic regimes. The British Museum is currently hosting an exhibition on the Hajj which is funded by Saudi Arabia and reflects the royal family's position on the ritual. Should an institution dedicated to secular learning accommodate such religiously doctrinaire exhibitions? Yes, says Malise Ruthven in the New York Review of Books blog, who evidently believes in the conciliatory effects of such cultural politics. Tagesspiegel author Nicola Kuhn sees the new "Roads of Arabia" exhibition in Berlin's Pergamon Museum more critically. Image © National Museum, Riyadh
Frankfurt's Städelmuseum has just opened its new subterranean contemporary art extension, the culmination of a radical overhaul of the building and its collections. Hans-Joachim Müller ventures down below the surreal domed lawn and is left to meander through a refreshingly idiosyncratic retrospective that turns its back on received ideas about the progress of art. (Image:exterior view of Städel extension by Norbert Miguletz)
The Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin is currently hosting Germany's first major retrospective of the legendary Japanese artist Hokusai, featuring over 430 exhibits, many of which have never left Japan before. It is hard to believe that such
incredible diversity could stem from the hand of just one artist, but it is the product of a lifetime's dedication. By Katrin Wittneven. Image: "Onikojima Yataro and Saihoin Akabozu"© Katsushika Hokusai Museum of Art
German museum director Martin Roth, who has just organised the exhibition "The Art of Enlightenment" in Beijing, belittles the attention focused on Ai Weiwei. His response to the arrest of the Chinese artist is alarming and clearly shows how marketing takes precedence over ethics in the world of culture. A commentary by Rüdiger Schaper.
Ai Weiwei - the modest megalomaniac, the relaxed rebel. Hanno Rauterberg met China's most interviewed man in the cellar of Munich's Haus der Kunst, where the artist was preparing to turn the place into a battlefield.
An exhibition in ZKM Karlsruhe explores the enormous range of artistic processes that exist between the moment of conception and finished work. By Kathrin Peters
Cologne Cathedral looks back at a long and eventful history. The inauguration of Gerhard Richter's stained glass window for the South Transept adds a new chapter, bright with 72-colour, frame-breaking abstraction. By 
Now, as the last eye witnesses are dying out, totalitarianism is tempting a new generation to warm their hands in its fire. From Bernd Eichinger, Jonathan Meese and now Tom Cruise, is there no letting go of the Führer? By Georg Diez
Both the Venice Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel have taken the dark side of modernity as their theme. Looking at how the two mega-exhibitons do battle, Hanno Rauterberg prefers Kassel's investigation of evil to Venice's concession to it. (Untitled, from the series Spring-Sow-Plum-Scene, 1996, mask 6, 2003. © Aoki Ryoko)
Is today's art no more than the fashion of the day? Are there only niches in art, each with its own cutting edge? Brigitte Werneburg asks what contemporariness means in a world where the lines are blurred between fashionable art and artistic fashion.
In a disused dockyard in Rostock, the "Art goes Heiligendamm" initiative has put the final touches to its G8 intervention. The preferred topic among the artworks is borders and overcoming them. Aside from that they deal anything that's good: information, documentation, irony, utopia, anti-consumerism. By Irene Grüter
Dada is back. Erwin Wurm is the great grandson of the Surrealists. The hilarity and hidden meanings of his stagings and sculptures unsettle and get under your skin. To coincide with a major retrospective in Hamburg's Deichtorhallen, Werner Spies visited the artist in his studio in Vienna. 
The art of glimmer and of deception. Seminal works show the roots and origins of the Op Art movement in an exhibition at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle. The dynamic of black and white fields meets snuffling electric motors. And a bachelor machine makes jokes and winks. By Ulf Erdmann Ziegler