Documenta 9: the bottom line - analysis of the importance of the art exhibition in Kassel, Germany

Art in America, Sept, 1993 by David Galloway

Last year's mecca for cultural pilgrims, Kassel has once more become a city in search of a viable identity. Two centuries have passed since Kassel flourished as a seat for the princes of Hessen, who gathered imposing art collections and raised stately palaces to house them - including the Fridericianum, where Documenta was launched in 1955. Before the renown of Documenta created periodic celebrity, the city's dominant 20th-century image was that of an arsenal and administrative center for the Third Reich. Its strategic importance was so great that more bombs fell there in 1943 alone than on any other urban center in Germany prior to the firebombing of Dresden in 1945.

Kassel emerged from the war as a battered frontier outpost, less than 20 miles from what would become the East German border. The rebuilding that soon began in other German cities was slow to gain momentum within a saber's rattle of the Cold War frontier; few West German companies were willing to locate in Kassel and attempt to fill the economic vacuum left behind by the munitions industry. Though both Kassel's bellicose past and its derelict condition made it something of a national liability, the crippled city made a hyperbolic formal application to become the capital of the new Germany. By way of a consolation prize, it was made the site of a Federal Garden Show in 1955.

For the city of Kassel, the Federal Garden Show meant a face-lift to the ruined gardens that once linked its sumptuous palaces, and it promised an unparalleled influx of visitors. Direction of this massive undertaking was entrusted to Kassel's Academy for Arts and Crafts, and a tent to house a show of modern art became part of the master plan. Arnold Bode, a teacher of painting at the Academy, had more ambitious ideas. With temporary repairs and imaginative improvisation, he argued, the shell of the Fridericianum could become a "Museum of 100 Days." To that end, he and a group of sympathetic colleagues founded a Society for 20th-Century European Art" that would later become the Documenta Corporation. Today, as in its infancy, the direction of the Kassel spectacular is thus in private hands, though the event receives massive public funding. Only this unique corporate structure guarantees the kind of artistic freedom so cherished by Documenta directors - from Bode himself to Jan Hoet.

From the start, Documenta had an inevitable political dimension. By placing particular stress on works produced in the 1920s and '30s, the first show attempted to reacquaint Germans with the tradition of European modernism brutally suppressed by the Nazis. The astonishing success of the show, which logged more than 130,000 visitors, encouraged a sequel in 1959, when focus shifted to contemporary achievements and American artists began to take a significant part in the proceedings. The East German press denounced the results as "a bourgeois nightmare." Thus Kassel unwittingly found a new role as a democratic outpost, proudly waving liberal banners within sight of the Iron Curtain.

For Kassel's city fathers, the image enhancement was hard to resist, and Documenta soon acquired its own self-perpetuating momentum. It also acquired something of the air of a self-fulfilling prophecy: Everyone goes to Documenta because, as it happens, everyone else goes to Documenta. Threatened by all the internal complications that afflict the life of mammoths, it has nonetheless demonstrated a remarkable adaptability. Each fresh installment tends to open with ominous rumors that it will be the last and closes with euphoric reports of "record-breaking" attendance. Since the exhibition has only twice stayed within its budget (in 1982 and 1992), ballyhooing attendance figures helps to assuage the state and federal agencies that are expected to make up the deficit. Like press releases for art fairs, those circulated by the Documenta Corporation are heavy on superlatives.

Documenta 9 was no exception. The tents were scarcely folded, the sawdust still being swept away, when Documenta's chief bookkeeper triumphantly announced that Kassel's "Museum of 100 Days," under the aegis of Jan Hoet, was the biggest, the costliest, the most frequented show since 1959. In comparison to Documenta 8, attendance had increased by 27 percent to a total of 609,235. Though costs had spiraled as well, to DM19.5 million, less than one third of the outlay was covered by local, state and federal subventions. Ticket and catalogue sales, official souvenirs, artists' editions and posters had generated income of more than DM10 million, and an additional infusion of nearly DM2 million in contributions by private sponsors took care of the remaining deficit. The triumphant official statistics, however, must be regarded with a certain skeptical detachment. Only broadly itemized categories - including "personnel costs" and "honoraria" - are released to the press; as a matter of discretion, the director's honorarium is not separately itemized. Furthermore, after announcing revenues of DM6 million in ticket sales, within 24 hours Documenta's financial director adroitly (and without explanation) revised the figure to DM7 million, thus conjuring up a perfectly balanced budget.