dOCUMENTA (13): An Art Exhibition in Kassel ... and in Kabul 20/06 –19/07/2012

<p>This publication introduces the exhibition documenta (13) in Kabul as well as documents the preliminary seminars that were held between 2010 and 2012. The four main positions around which dOCUMENTA (13) is articulated—Siege, Hope, Retreat, and Stage—correspond to four possible conditions in which artists and thinkers find themselves acting in the present. These positions are not comprehensive and acquire their significance through their mutual interrelation and resonance. Kabul and Bamiyan together constitute a crossroad of these conditions. Here, simultaneously with the state of hope, artists frequently experience the condition of being under siege, as well as that of withdrawal and exposure. The Seminars described in the following pages, initiated by documenta (13) and Goethe-Institut Afghanistan, ran throughout spring and summer 2012, with a first meeting in June 2010, and conclude with a related exhibition at the Queen’s Palace and the surrounding Bagh-e Babur, organized curatorially by dOCUMENTA (13) member of Core Agent Group Andrea Viliani and artist Aman Mojadidi. As part of a constellation of events, the seminars were held with a group of more than twenty-five Afghan art students to foster discussions of key questions; they were led by international and Afghan participants. The aim of both the seminars and the exhibition is to share artistic practices with the local community and to present artistic practice through a participatory process of creation and learning…</p>