Documenta 7: A Dictionary of Received Ideas

Author(s): Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Reviewed work(s):
Source: October, Vol. 22 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 104-126
Published by: The MIT Press
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 Documenta 7: A Dictionary of
ReceivedIdeas

BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH

Absences
In both its inclusionsand omissions, the selectionpolicy forDocumenta 7
constituteda symptomaticdisplay of repressivetolerance, an intensifiedform
of amnesia withregardto real historicalconditions. It is not so much a question
of the absence of individual artists(although one can certainlyspeculate about
the omission of political artistssuch as Victor Burgin, Darcy Lange, and Steve
Willats fromthe otherwisevirtuallycomplete repetitionofexhibitorsthat Rudi
Fuchs, Documenta's Artistic Director, had shown at his home base at the
Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven). It is, rather, the absence of per-
spective, methodological or historical-not to mention critical or political-
that gave the show its fundamental sense of pompous and pretentious ob-
solescence. It is what one might have found at a turn-of-the-century salon,
when the greedyanxietyofa rulingclass to maintainitspositiondimmed critical
perception.
This absence of perspectivewas, of course, rationalized as liberalism,pre-
tending,as it did, to offerabsolute freedomto the workof art understoodas an
autonomous, ahistoricalentity,a product of the artistseen as the "last practi-
tioner of distinctindividuality."1Thus, a perspectivewhich would attemptto
encompass the most productive investigationsof the functionof visual repre-
sentationwithincontemporaryculturewas replaced by a desperate attemptto
reestablishthe hegemony of esoteric, elitistmodernisthigh culture. And this
occurs just at that moment when the inadequacy of this frameworkhas been
made most apparent, having become the central object of contestationin art
history,criticaltheory,semiology, and feministtheoryalike.
The fifthand most importantin the series of Documenta exhibitions-
organized by Harald Szeemann in 1972- had at least begun to question a
general focus on high art. Therefore,ten years later, one mighthave expected
froma team of highlyqualified curators2a slightlymore complex organizing

1. R. H. Fuchs, catalogue preface in Documenta7, Kassel, 1982, vol. 1, p. XV.

2. The team consisted of an Artistic Director, Rudi Fuchs, Director of the Stedelijk van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and an ArtisticCommittee composed of Coosje van Bruggen, formerly

MichaelAsher.Proposalfor official
poster
for
Documenta7. 1982.

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DK
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106 OCTOBER

principle than that of the simple agglomerationof the most recent samples of
market-orientedavant-garde products.

Adorno
In 1959, some ten years afterhis returnfromexile in America, the phi-
losopherT. W. Adorno encounteredforthe firsttime,at the second Documenta,
the work ofJackson Pollock. For him, as forso many other visitorsto the ex-
hibition,that work became and remained a central point of referenceforcon-
temporaryvisual thinking. More than twentyyears later at Documenta 7,
American criticshave convertedthe veins of Adorno's aestheticthought- even
while his major work,AesthetischeTheorie,remains untranslatedinto English-
into a mine fromwhich to extracta vocabulary of emptyradicalism that is in-
formed by neither the historical specificitynor the political acumen of its
model. Rather, Adorno simplyprovides them with a jargon ofjustificationfor
the reemergenceof irrationalismin contemporaryGerman painting.

Asher
Michael Asher'scontributionto Documenta looked as ifitscensorshiphad
been merelythe product of circumstance. His proposal: the reconstructionof
the wing walls fromthe ground floorof Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany (a
private residence designed and constructedby Mies van der Rohe in 1931,
recentlyrestoredto functionas a museum withone ofthecuratorsofDocumenta
7 as its director). The walls of Asher's reconstructionwere intended to be in-
stalled accordingto theiroriginalfloorplan on the second floorofthe Orangerie
at Kassel and to functionthereas regular display surfacesin the contextof the
exhibition. This proposal was accepted by the curatorial committee several
months before the opening of the show, and constructionhad begun when
Asher visitedKassel in May. With the walls nearing completion,however, the
curatorsmust finallyhave understoodthe implicationsof the work. Construc-
tion of the walls was abandoned before the addition of the dark stained door
framesand baseboards that Mies's design had provided forthe framingof the
starkwhitewalls of the home. The framedobjects to be displayed on the walls
would have suffered - in the
opinion of the curators- fromthe suggestion of
the architectural conditions of the private home. As though Cindy Sherman's
fashion plates depictingthe cynical recapitulationof the rituals of female sub-
missiveness could be affectedby baseboards.

Curator, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Germano Celant, Contributing Editor, Artforum;

Johannes Gachnang, formerlyDirector, Kunsthalle, Bern; and Gerhard Storck, Director,
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld.

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 ofReceivedIdeas
A Dictionary 107

Broodthaers
If only what John Russell wrote in the New YorkTimeshad been true:
"Documenta 7 could indeed be said to be under the benign and posthumous
aegis of Broodthaers."Marcel Broodthaers'sworkwas the sole exception to the
exhibition'sproviso that nothing be included if it dated frommore than two
years back. (Presumably thisrigorousbut pointlessimpositionwas established
as a selectioncriterionby the curatorsto guaranteethecurrencyofthe exhibits.)
Broodthaers'soeuvre is beginningto emergeas one ofthemostcomplexaesthetic
investigationsof the conditionsof artisticproduction and receptionwithinthe
frameworkof modernismand its social institution,the museum. As such it em-
bodies the truepostmodernpracticeofthe 1970s. In theirrandomjuxtaposition
of mutuallyexclusive aestheticpositions,the curatorsmay well have attempted
to imitatecertain aspects of Broodthaers'swork. But forBroodthaershimself,
this notion of aesthetic paradox did not arise fromcompromised thinkingor
lack ofhistoricalcommitment,or fromthe used artdealer's attitudethatanything
goes. On the contrary,when, in 1972, Broodthaerscommissionedboth Gerhard
Richter and Georg Baselitz to paint paintings of eagles forhis final museum
fiction,the MuseumofEagles, his purpose was not to effecta liberal reconcilia-
tion of contradictionsin orderto affirmthe existingpower structure,but rather
to intensifythe dialectical opposition of the two approaches, to sharpen the
viewers' awareness of the framingconditions within which both practices are
contained.

CuratorialCreativity
A second workby Asher, one thathad been commissionedforDocumenta,
was dropped withoutexplanation. This was to have been a poster forthe ex-
hibition, for which Asher used the figuresrepresentingmale and female un-
employed workers,which had been designed in the early 1930s by the Cologne
progressivistartistGerd Arntzforthe Isotype language developed by the Vien-
nese sociologistOtto Neurath. The poster implicitlyquestioned the historical
adequacy of an international art exhibition costing seven million Deutsch-
marks at a moment of considerable social instabilityand economic crisis.
Paradoxically, Asher's proposal was replaced by a design that the exhibition's
curatorsculled froman earlierworkby him forthe Art Instituteof Chicago, in
which he had integrateda sculpturebyJean-AntoineHoudon into his installa-
tion. Misunderstood, Asher's idea returned, inverted, in their design for the
officialposter and postcard for Documenta 7, which used a photograph of
Johann August Nahl's neoclassical portrait of the Landgrave Ludwig II, a
referenceto the past and its inherentauthority.3

3. That WalterNikkels'sdesignforDocumentareferred to Asher'sChicago in-

specifically

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 Decor. 1975. (Detail of
MarcelBroodthaers.
at Documenta7.)
installation
reconstructed

Artistscan, in fact,be excellentdesigners,especially at a historicalmo-

ment when ornament and decoration are among the only practices they are
allowed to reactivate. But the curatoras poet and the designeras artist- inso-
far as the curatorsand designersof Documenta 7 triedtheirhands at it4- only
constituteda leaden addition to the verbal and visual ballast thathas accumu-
lated withinthe ideological space of culture.

Dcor
Decor-A Conquestwas the titleof Marcel Broodthaers'sinstallationat the
ICA in London in 1975. This, his last major installationwork, was recon-
structedunderthe supervisionofhis widow at Documenta 7, whereit functioned
as an allegorical anchor. The workconsistedof two main sections. One was an
arrangementof lawn furniture,includinga table on which a puzzle of the Bat-
tle of Waterloo was scattered,accompanied by a collection of contemporary
machine guns. The otherwas an awe-inspiringarsenal ofhistoricalcannons in-
terspersedwith eighteenth-century furnitureand candelabra, a taxidermist's
boa constrictor,palm trees, and red carpets. Broodthaers'stableauxmorts- they

stallation is evidenced in the Documenta catalogue, vol. 2, p. VIII, where the design is pictured
in conjunction with two photographs of the Art Institute'ssculpture of George Washington by
Houdon, one in its old location at the museum's entrance, the second showing its relocation by
Asher in the eighteenth-century gallery.
4. See, forexample, the statementby Walter Nikkels, the designer of the exhibition,in which
he states: "The placement of the walls withinthe classicisticorder of the spaces can be seen as a
negative sculpture"(Documenta catalogue, vol. 2, p. XXXIX).

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A Dictionary
ofReceivedIdeas 109

function as hybrids of the contemporary naturemorteand historical tableau

vivant-were always conceived for and placed within the particular circum-
stances and specificmomentsof an exhibitionand an institution.Dicor-A Con-
questoriginallyprovided the settingforthe shootingof Broodthaers'slast film,
which combines shotstaken fromthe window of the ICA
La Bataillede Waterloo,
of the Trooping of the Colors on Pall Mall, in celebrationof the Queen's birth-
day, withfootageof a woman tryingto piece togetherthe puzzle of the Battle of
Waterloo taken in the installationitself.It is impossible to verifywhetherthe
filmstemmed fromthe installation,or the installationserved as a pretextfor
the film,and it was thereforeonly appropriatethatLa Bataillede Waterloo had its
German premiere during the opening of Documenta 7. We can rest assured,
however, that Broodthaerswould have proposed an entirelydifferent work for
the contextof thisexhibition,which makes it all the more astonishingthatDecor
could unravel the secret fatality of the historical moment within which
Documenta 7 seemed to rejoice.

Discoveries
It mightbe expected that one of the functionsof an exhibitionof contem-
porary art on the scale of Documenta (one of its curatorscompared it, in the
catalogue, to the Olympic Games) would be discovery:of new perspectivesand
unknown artists, of unrecognized contexts and relationships within various
disciplines, of new methodological approaches, as well as of rediscoveriesof
artistswhose works deserve reevaluation. In 1972 Documenta 5 disclosed a
whole range of such new perspectives, and introduced new work by young
artistsof considerable consequence forthe definitionof art practice in the years
to come. Moreover, it opened the exhibitionto a notion of visual culture that
threwinto the sharpestpossible reliefthe obsolescent isolation of autonomous
high culture. Ten years later Documenta 7 closed down that investigationin
favor of a conservativerealignmentof the Beaux-Arts categories and a meth-
odological agnosticism which undoubtedly sees itself as postmodern. Its
reaffirmation not only emphasizes the hegemonyof paintingand sculpture,but
also reestablishesthe supremacy of the museum as the social institutionwithin
which the discourse of high art originatesand must remain. Documenta 7 pro-
claimed the individualityof the artist and the autonomy of artisticpractice.
(Fuchs's statement-"Modern art does not have a history- it is an experi-
ment"5- is one that we mightlast have read around 1955 in a commercial gal-
lery'sbrochure promotingFrench tachism.) It obviously does not consider the
currenthistoricalframeworkand how thatmighthave determinedthe curators'

5. R. H. Fuchs, "I Want to Make an Opera out of Works of Art," interview by Heiner
Stachelhaus, Das Kunstwerk,
June 1982, pp. 4-5.

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 110 OCTOBER

present enchantmentwith conservativecliches. The painted expression, that

predictable stereotypethat stared out fromevery second wall surface of the
show, promised aestheticdiscoveriesand adventuresof the kind one expectsto
parade down a fashion-showrunway: too shallow and breathlessto be said to
be bathed in ideology, theycan only be said to be soaked in Zeitgeist.

FashionModa
The Fashion Moda pavilion at Documenta, transplantedfromthe South
Bronx to its temporaryhigh-artsettingin the Fridericianum'sEnglish garden,
was one ofthe fewcourageous curatorialchoices. Through itspetty-commodity
program,where artists'tchatchkisand souvenirswere traded over the counter,
the hidden orderof exchange value underlyingDocumenta's high-artpretenses
was revealed. One would hate to think,however, that this mightbe Fashion
Moda's finaldestination(even thoughthe name does suggestthe ultimateloca-
tion of the enterprise).Jenny Holzer, who, in collaborationwith Stefan Eins,
was responsibleforbringingthe Fashion Moda pavilion to Documenta, excels
in both unmaskingideologyat workin language and maskingart as business to
achieve a wide disseminationof her texts- printedon everythingfromT-shirts
to facades. But when the workentersor leaves the galleryin the formofbronze
plaques, small change indeed seems to have compromised Holzer's original
radicalism.

FashionModa displayof T-shirtsby,amongothers,

ChristieRupp andJohnFekner.(Shown infrontof
Daniel Buren'sworkin situat theOrangerie.)

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 ofReceivedIdeas
A Dictionary 111

Daniel Buren.Les Guirlandes. 1982. (Photo-souvenir:

Daniel Buren.)

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112 OCTOBER

Garlands
Daniel Buren's work, Les Guirlandes,introduced sound and motion into
Documenta 7, which was given over to painting'ssilence and stasis (in spite of
its pretense of emotional turbulence). Together with the sound, the sense of
historicityand temporalcontinuityof Buren's workcontradictedthe exhibition's
general claim forthe universalityand timelessnessof contemporaryaesthetic
A
production. collectionof musical samples- rangingfromLully and Philidon
l'Ain6 through Bach, Purcell, Mozart, Beethoven, and Verdi, to Offenbach
and ScottJoplin- were broadcast over the large fieldleading the visitorsto the
Museum Fridericianum.These musical offerings were regularlyinterruptedby
a litanyofcolor names recitedin fourteenlanguages. In the strictchronologyof
the musical samples, as well as in the abstract administrativelistingof color
terms,a parodic frameworkof historicizationwas proposed as a counterpoint
to the and the effortsto overridethe viewers'
exhibition's-- curators'--concerted
discoveryof the real historicalconditionsof aestheticpracticeby inspiringawe
and dignity.Pennants of Buren's recognizable colored and white stripeswere
stretchedabove the fieldon the same poles that carried the loudspeakers, com-
plementingthe musical sideshowwithan ambience of gaudiness appropriateto
a fun fairor the grand opening of a gas station. This, in open confrontationto
the discretionand rigor of the newly constructedwhite wall systemthat had
been installedin the eighteenth-century museum forthe display of objects. The
successfulsynthesisof all these elementsin Buren's workprobably accounts for
the attemptby the majority of the show's curators to prevent its installation
(although theyfinallyrelentedat the last minute) since the majorityof viewers
might have perceived the work as a decoration installed by the exhibition's
organizers to celebrate the inauguration of theirshow.

Haacke
Hans Haacke's two-partinstallation,Oelgemaelde- Hommagea MarcelBrood-
thaers(1982), was neitherverywell placed withinthe exhibitionnor very well
received. Benevolent criticsdeemed it necessary to defend Broodthaers'swork
against its genuinehistoricaland politicalpotentialas thatpotentialwas revealed
in Haacke's timelyhomage. The juxtaposition of the meticulouslypainted por-
traitof Reagan (Haacke's own accomplishment)witha mural-sizedphotograph
of an antiwar demonstrationon the occasion of Reagan's visit to the German
capital, brought too many aspects of the interdependence of aesthetic and
politicalmattersinto focusto please those conservativecriticswho would prefer
to neutralize Broodthaers's work within an aesthetic nebulosity. Haacke's
referencewas to an installationby Broodthaers at Documenta 5 in which in-
scriptionscontained withina black square were painted on the floor.Such in-
scriptionsas "rever, peindre" were replaced halfway throughthe exhibition's
duration by "private property."The elements of traditional museum exhibi-

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 ...I.I.I..I.
.......

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Hans Haacke. Oelgemaelde - Hommage 'a Marcel

Broodthaers. 1982.

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'VII

29 SA 30
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114 OCTOBER

tions that demarcate the threshold between life and high art- stanchions,
velvet ropes, carpets- frequentlyused by Broodthaers in his installations,
returnedin Haacke's work as the means of bracketingthe two apparentlyin-
compatible elementsof his work, the paintingof the leader and the photograph
of the crowd. But the particular depiction in Haacke's painting and its
mock-dignifiedpresentationgenerated discomfortwithin the ambience of an
exhibitionwhere the dignityof both art and its manner of presentationwere
declared primaryconcerns of the curators(Fuchs at one point mentioned that
he would installcarpets in what had once been a guttedbuilding). If Haacke's
workonce again broke the unspoken rule that art can be criticalas long as it is
discreet- a rule that Broodthaershad oftenemphasized in workthatpointed to
ritualsof it responded to a historicalsituationand a particular
discretion--then
instance where Broodthaers'sstrategieshad themselvesbeen acculturated and
falsifiedby the curators. The repeated devaluation of these already devaluated
strategieswas, then,seen by Haacke as the only means by whichto pay homage
to the inherentpolitical radicalism of theirauthor.

Kassel

Every fouror fiveyears, a small provincial cityin West Germany (com-

parable in size, climate, and location withinthe countryto Akron, Ohio) re-
quests the pleasure of the internationalart world's company. In the eighteenth
century, Kassel was the glamourous residence of the aristocracyof Hesse,
patronsof one of the firstmuseum buildingsof Europe (1769-79), the Museum
Fridericianum. Hesse was, at the time, a feudal state notoriousforthe rigidity
of its army. It was the state where one of the most innovative German play-
wrights, Georg Biichner, was born, prosecuted, and imprisoned after the
failure of the revolutionin the early nineteenthcentury. In the 1930s Kassel
served as one of Hitler's most importantammunition depots, a central point
connectingBerlin, capital of the Reich, with its westernand southernregions.
Destroyed by the Allies in the final phase of World War II, Kassel was
reconstructedin a rush during the economic miracle to become one of the
ugliest cities west of Siberia, a citywhere Volkswagens are now assembled by
Turkish, Spanish, and Italian hands. The blandness of the architectureis only
exceeded by the blandness ofthe inhabitants,who seem to have eaten theirway
fromtheirFascist past to theirneo-capitalistpresent.The population of Kassel
could not care less about Documenta and internationalcontemporaryart,just
as the internationalart world could not care less about the people of the city
and state that sponsors the most expensive of art exhibitions.But the 250,000
to 450,000 visitorsthat the exhibition attractsduring the 100 days of its in-
stallationcome fromall over the countryas well as fromneighboringcountries,
excluding, of course, those neighborsto the east, the East Germans. Unlike its
visits to the Venice or Paris biennals, where the food is good and the monu-

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A Dictionary
ofReceivedIdeas 115

ments are plenty, the international art world dreads going to Kassel, yet
is always eager to participate, for Documenta- both the exhibition and its
tradition- is an ideological institutionwhere the aestheticstock of the present
day is evaluated and tested.

Mysticism,Postmodern
In one of his many pronouncementson Documenta artists,Rudi Fuchs
declared Lawrence Weiner a mystic and paired him with Jannis Kounellis,
whom he wished to be seen as Weiner's Greco-Italian counterpart.Six years
earlier, Fuchs had described Weiner's work in the catalogue ofhis exhibitionat
the Van Abbemuseum:
Is thisworkthenvisual art?That depends on use (on what one wants
or expects to do with it); also it depends on how a notation can be
read. The use of language conformsin no way to the use oflanguage
withinpoetry. Designation of the work as visual art is a question of
utilityonly. (There is no reason to name it differently.)

The work is pure praxis. It is not carried by an aesthetic theory;

there is just a sense of utility.Importantis that it entersthe culture
- not as aesthetic satisfactionbut as a
methodology to deal with
material culture.6
If this descriptiondoes not correspondto our notion of mysticism,it neverthe-
less helps us understand the recourse to mysticismthat pervades the catalogue
rhetoricand installation strategiesof the present exhibition. In this context
mysticismis called up to reconcile the blatant contradictionswithin current
aesthetic practice, and is required to cover over the systematicbreakdown of
liberal thoughtand its presentconversionto outrightreaction.To be committed
intellectuallyto a programofbourgeois enlightenmentand rational progressas
long as the expanding economy allows forit, but to fallback into a swamp of ir-
rationalismwhen economic crisis requires a legitimationof hierarchicalorder
and privilege- this is the historical constellation that generates the perverse
embrace and willfulcombinationof mutuallyexclusive aestheticpracticesform-
ing the foundation of Fuchs's installation. The postmodern coexistence of
aestheticcontradictionspretendsto assure and defend the continued existence
of a sublime high culture against the vulgar forcesof "the media and politics,"
as Fuchs puts it. (Whose media? Whose politics?)
Certainly in the 1930s one could have combined a paintingby Mondrian
and a flowerstill life by Vlaminck (they had once been historicallyand geo-

6. R. H. Fuchs, LawrenceWeiner,Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum, 1976, pp. 19-20.

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116 OCTOBER

graphicallyclose enough to be thoughtof as artistsof the same region who

"spoke the same dialect") in the same way that Fuchs combined, forexample,
the work of Hans Haacke with the paintings of a lost local talent called J6rg
Immendorf.But it takes a particularurgencyformystification to claim forsuch
eminentlyrelevant artisticpractice, on the one hand, and
juxtapositions--of
the currentrevival of trivialpicturemaking, on the other- that theyrepresent
the "battle of the century."' With this inflatedphrase, Fuchs refersto another
such combination, that of Andy Warhol and a painter fromthe rural environ-
ment of southernGermany by the name of Anselm Kiefer, who uses strawand
tar in his paintings to give tangible formto his desire to return to primary
matters.

Operaand Operator
Too numerous and too frequentlyquoted fromhis notorious letter in-
viting artiststo participate in Documenta 7 are the confessionsof the Artistic
Director's creative ambitions to make the exhibitioninto anythingother than
an exhibition- a poem called Le Bateauivre,a story,a fairytale, or, ultimately,
an opera: "I understand myselfto be a composer. I will make an opera out of
works of art, paintings, and objects. Such explicit manipulation stands
in overt contradictionto Fuchs's professed
."...- concern to present the artworks
withoutan impositionofhistoricalor stylisticcategories,as immaculateaesthetic
conceptions. This reveals the extentto which the administrationand distribu-
tion ofthe individualized productsofthe contemporaryavant-gardepartakesof
the conditions of the culture industry,which must constantlymythifyits ac-
tivitiesin order to maintain its credibility.Or-its dialectical complement-
the extentto which industrymust employ the cliches of individualism and the
cult of personalityas a means of sellingits productsat a time when genuine in-
dividualityis most threatened.No wonder, then, that the desire forpoetryex-
pressed by high culture's top manager (the three-yearsalary of Documenta's
ArtisticDirector was 365,000.00 DM) and the private confessionsof the cor-
porate entrepreneurcoincide almost word forword. Thus, Ralph Lauren:
I'm inspired by America. . . . When I do the shows, it's all a
dream. . . . There's a vibration I'm expressing, as if I'm a writer.
When thatmodel came down the runway in the patchworkskirtand
the pictorialsweaterwiththe school and the kids and the treesacross
the front,and Neil Diamond was singing"Hang onto the Dream"-
that was everythingI believe in, everythingI am.9

7. Fuchs, "I Want to Make an Opera."

8. Ibid.
9. Jesse Kornbluth, "Ralph Lauren: Living the Dream," Vogue,August 1982, p. 305.

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 ofReceivedIdeas
A Dictionary 117

Parsifal'sProps
Paradoxically Documenta 7, whose declared goal was to restoredignityto
the visual arts and to defend high culture against the incursionsof the media,
opened with the German premiere of Syberberg'sParsifal.The film'sFrench
producers,with theirbusinessmen's sense of what is proper, had turned down
Fuchs's plea forthe world premiere,thus frustrating the conservativeaesthete's
attempt at a media coup for Documenta. Nevertheless, the film director's
pathetic desire to be an artist and the exhibition director'sambition to par-
ticipate in the Zeitgeiston a grand scale did findtheirmeetingground: in the
basement of the Fridericianum. There the monumental kitsch of Parsifal's
gigantic plaster props (Wagner's head, Hitler's hand) loomed in the dark
(where better might the exhibition'srepressed desires be displayed?). In the
moviemaker'sobsession to be taken seriouslyas an artist,while also cashing in
on the media's current success at toying with fascism under the guise of
historicalintrospection;in the exhibitiondirector'sneed to show these emblems
of the fashionable taste forthe prohibited,togetherwith his wish to make the
historicallyunacceptable tasteful- in these the collapse of modernistaesthetic
criteriathatpervaded the exhibitionas a whole revealed its implicationsforthe
future:the conflictbetween the formsof mass culture- which appear as seam-
less totalities within which the individual subject is constituted- and the
aestheticpracticesof individual artists- which open up a dimension of critical
negativity- cannot be resolved by the social institutionswhich support and
contain aestheticpractice.They lack the criticalresistance,let alone the political
consciousness, and under the pressureof crisiswill yield to whateversystemof
representationand method of distributionis necessary for the ideologically
organized dismantlingof modernism.

Sculpture,Outdoors
With Documenta 7's renewed faithin theinstitutionofthe museum-both
its mode of display and the ideology it imposes- sculpture appears to have
entereda historicalcul-de-sac. This is particularlythe case forthatworkwhich,
partiallymotivatedby a critique of the discreteobject, extended its investiga-
tions to an architecturaldimension. Eitherby excluding certainsculptorsor by
presentingtheirwork in an incoherentmanner (Richard Serra was, forexam-
ple, representedonly by a drawing),the curatorsmade it appear thatsculptural
activityhad withered to utter marginality. One has only to remember the
extraordinarysculpture exhibitions organized by Germano Celant-"Ambi-
ente Arte" at the 1976 Venice Biennale-and Kaspar Koenig-"Skulptur" at
Muenster in 1977- to realize the drastic change in recentcuratorial attitudes.
Three works in Documenta 7 did, however, engage in an exemplaryway in a
reflectionupon the transformation of sculptureduringthepast two decades, in-
cluding the recent preoccupation with outdoor installation:Claes Oldenburg's

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 118 OCTOBER

Pick-Axe (1982), Carl Andre's SteelPeneplain(1982), and Dan Graham's TwoAd-

jacentPavilions(1978-82). Rather than having to face the contradictionsof plac-
ing contemporarysculpture in the urban environment,these works accepted
theirconfinementin the settingof an eighteenth-century English garden, but at
least theydid not destroythegarden'shistoricalarchitectureas did the sculptural
installationsof past Documenta exhibitions.
Oldenburg's work, placed on the bank of the Fulda River, introduceda
giant tool of physical labor into a landscape of leisure. The blue steel axe was
tiltedat an angle reminiscentofTatlin's monumentand its attemptto replicate
the inclinationof the globe. Oldenburg's work escaped questions of the para-
doxical nature of iconic representationusing large scale steel constructionby
functioningin relation to Kassel's Herculessculpture. Oldenburg confronted
that work, "an aristocraticfollyon top of a hill," with a banal contemporary
object turnedinto a sculpturalsign of classicistmeasure. The dimensionof col-
lectivity- the essential quality of any public monument- in Oldenburg's
work depended upon iconicityand its scale, but it remained external to the

Dan Graham.
Two AdjacentPavilions.1978-82.

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A Dictionary
ofReceivedIdeas 119

sculpture'sstructure.In Andre's steel plate sculpturethat collectivedimension

was achieved mechanistically through the sheer expansion of size-to 300
metersin length- and throughthe implicituse of the workas a walkway in the
park.
Graham's work is dependent upon both Oldenburg's ingenious transfor-
mation of public signs into monumental sculpture and Andre's materialist
definitionof perception throughthe physical involvementof the viewer. But
Graham incorporatesthe dimension ofcollectivityinto the materialstructureof
the work, insofaras the work embodies that dimension in both the perception
and the use of the sculpture. Graham's pair of two-way mirroredpavilions
differedfromeach other only in the light conditions resultingfromtheirceil-
ings, one of whichwas opaque, the othertranslucent.This determinedwhether
the viewers inside the pavilion could watch people outside withoutbeing ob-
served,and vice versa. Using the mostcommon elementof recentinternational-
style corporate architecture,the mirroredglass curtain wall, Graham trans-
formedthat architectureinto particularizedpavilion units of a size-just large
enough to feelmore spacious than a telephonebooth, yetnot as large as, say, a
bus shelter- which did not impose upon the eighteenth-century garden archi-
tecture.The pavilions engaged the visitorsto Documenta in a reflectionupon
the social implications of perceptual activity, ranging from self-reflection,
through interactionsgenerated by the two pavilions among groups of spec-
tators,to the inversionof the language of corporatearchitectureinto an analyt-
ical model that could be seen as architecturalsculpture.

Warhol
As a collectorof weathervanes,Andy Warhol apparentlyknows as much
about how oxidation is induced as he does about painting. His OxidationPaint-
ingsat Documenta were among the rare pleasurable exceptionsto the generally
somber and pompous offeringsof the exhibition. From a distance they ap-
peared to be a new version of Art Informel;theirglisteningmetallic surfaces,
their emphatic splashes and spots, their undercover preciousness seemed to
share the worst aspects of Yves Klein. (These qualities already made viewers
aware thattheywere looking at verycontemporarywork.) When, however,the
authorshipand production procedure of the works were revealed- Warhol or
an assistant urinated onto canvases prepared with a copper emulsion, causing
highlygestural green splotchesof oxidation to formon the reddish ground-it
became clear thattheirmysteriousquality was not only the resultof theirsheer
physical beauty nor even their truthto materials. Indeed, what arrested the
viewersin theirdisenchantedwanderingsthroughthe show thathad attempted
to be a fairy tale was relief from the manufactured angst of the dozens of
Dutch, German, and Swiss art-schoolgraduates.

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Weiner.
by Side to Forma Row of Many ColoredObjects.
1978-82. (Photos:DanielBuren.)

Weiner
For the past fifteenyears or more Lawrence Weiner has consistentlyused
language as a medium to respond to the contemporarydesire for aesthetic
representations.The success of his linguisticstrategies-in his texts,films,and
videotapes- is evidentin the almost totaldefeatofthe critics'and historians'at-
tempts to impose a secondary discourse on the primarylanguage (the para-
phrasing paragraphs which accompany Weiner's statementsin Rudi Fuchs's
1976 catalogue formone of the rare exceptions). Weiner's tripartitecontribu-
tion to Documenta 7 consisted of one inscriptionon the museum's exterior
frieze,threeon the museum's interiorwalls, and one on the paper wrapperthat
binds togetherthe two volumes of the catalogue. Laconically, in the manner of
allegorical inscriptions,these sum up not only the conditionsof theirown ex-
istence; but also, metonymically,the conditions, performance,and mode of
representationof adjacent art objects; and finally,by logical extension,those of
the exhibitionat large. Weiner's statement,"Many colored objects placed side
by side to forma row of many colored objects"- painted in upper-case lettersin
German on the friezeof the Museum Fridericianumbeneath allegorical sculp-
turesrepresentingPhilosophy,Architecture,Painting,Sculpture, History,and
Astronomy- counterposed itself to the Latin inscription on the museum's
portico frieze. The latter is incised into the architectureand gilded, while
Weiner's inscriptionconsistsof bronze-coloredlettersapplied with automobile
lacquer sold by Chryslerto BMW. The particularfunctionof thisworkwas the
restorationof the real conditionsof discoursewhichunderlaythe accumulation

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of mythicalobjects on display inside the museum. Its placementin an architec-

turalsettinginsureda public mode ofaddress,and itsparticularmaterialpointed
to the extension of the conditions of imperialismfromeconomic to aesthetic
matters.

WomenArtists
Undoubtedly it was Coosje van Bruggen, the curatorresponsibleforthe
selection of American artists,who was also responsible forthe inclusion of a
number of women artistswhose work continues and develops the radical im-
plications of the major work of the 1960s and '70s, and offers,therefore,the
most stringentnegation of what is currentlypresented as the new, predomi-
nantlymale avant-garde of painting. Adequately presentedwithinthe exhibi-
tion, the work of Dara Birnbaum,JennyHolzer, SherrieLevine, and Martha
Rosler would presumablyhave helped a wider audience to understandthatthe
puerile performancesof neoexpressionistartistsare, despite theirspectacular
success, insufficientproposals for a definitionof contemporarycultural prac-
tice. Prominent display was provided instead for the work of Gilbert and
George, who seem to have functionedas spiritualleaders forthe male curators
in theirinstallationof the masters. Whatever turnone took in the exhibition's
labyrinth,one was confrontedwithanotherpanel depictingGilbertand George's
London lives of petitbourgeois turpitude.And whateverwall space remained
on the main floorsof the central building had to yield to the German and
Italian canvases vyingforspace, fame, and supremacy. Nevertheless,in spite

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122 OCTOBER

of dispersal and displacement(or, in Levine's case, because of the installation

in the shadow of an Italian scenario), thewomen's workmanaged to functionin
its subversivecontextual strategies.
Dara Birnbaum's work, the only video work admitted to Documenta 7,
was one of the most successfulin the exhibition,even taking into account its
juxtaposition withpaintingsby Boetti. Its success could be seen in its capacity
to attract and hold the attention of large groups of predominantlyyoung
viewers,who obviouslyunderstooditsexplicitcommitmentto contemporaneity,
a commitmentwhich denies the false impositionof the new aestheticsanctity.
They presumablyunderstood,as well, the work'scriticalcapacity to interfere
withthe normalperceptionofthatideologicalenvironmentwhichhas become so
totalizingin itseffectupon everydaylife,thehermeticenvironmentoftelevision.
Clearly those gazing crowdsin frontof Birnbaum'sthree-monitor panel installa-
tions were not in awe of the dignityof a high-artdiscipline. Indeed, theywere
distractedviewers. But theirdistractioncontainedwithinit the seeds of critical
distanciation.Their pleasure in the seriallyrepeatedTV imagery,as well as the
recycledsounds of'60s rockmusic, showsthepossibilityofdisruptingtelevision's
usual totalizingabsorption. With Birnbaum's work, as with the traditionof
Brechtianstrategiesgenerally,the viewersdo not abandon realitythroughtur-

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Dara Birnbaum.Left:PM Magazine. 1982. Right:
PM Magazine/AcidRock. 1982.

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 ofReceivedIdeas
A Dictionary 123

moil. The potentialfor criticalnegation in pleasurable distanciationprevents

them fromenteringa spectacle whose apparent liberationonly reinforcesthe
reificationof the perceptualprocess.
The last-minuteinvitationof Martha Rosler to Documenta resultedin a
first-dayperformance,Watchwords of theEighties,that confrontedthe attend-
ing internationalartworldwitha veryspecificquestion, thatofthe possibilityof
culturalresistanceand activistcriticismunder the politicaland economic condi-
tions of Reagan's America. Her performance,with its self-consciously artificial
incorporationof rap talk and graffiti writing,was as specificto contemporary
New York cultureas the "real"graffiti painterLee Quinones, who had been in-
vitedby thecuratorsto paint thewalls of a subterraneanpedestrianpassageway
in Kassel (so much forthe curators'commitmentto the local dialect of art). As
we see Rosler bouncingaround stage like a streetfighterwitha ghettoblaster,it
is apparentthather notionofauthenticity contradictsthe artworld'sdesireto ac-
culturateinstantlyany authenticsign of denial and resistance.The authenticity
with which Rosler confrontsthe viewer is that of the apparent impossibilityof
politicalcommitmentand culturalactivismwithinthe frameworkprovided by
the culturalapparatus and the necessityof a transformation of practicewithin
that framework.

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MarthaRosler.Watchwords
of theEighties.1982.
(Photo:Richard
Baron.)

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 forDocumenta7. 1981-82.
JohnKnight.Project
(Drawing byFumikoGoto.)

on theWall
Writings
Two worksin the exhibitionreceivedlittleattentiondue to theirsuccess in
resistingsubjugation to the curators'declamatorydisplay style.The two artists
deliberatelysituatedtheirworksin the stairwellsof the Museum Fridericianum,
away fromthe battlefieldof prime exposure and enforcedcomparisons. Both
works,thatby German artistLothar Baumgartenand thatby West Coast artist
John Knight,were writtensigns thathad been integratedinto the museum's ar-
chitecture.Language was not, however,theirprimaryfieldof investigation,nor
did they subscribe to a reifiednotion of site specificitythat ignores both the
linguisticand the ideological dimensions of modernistpractice in favor of the
perceptual conditionsgeneratedby architecture.
John Knight's six nearlyidenticalreliefelements- his initialstransformed
intoa logo design and coveredwithsix different travel were installedon
posters--
the six landings of the museum's two lateral staircases. The symmetryof the in-
stallation and the repetition of the elements incorporated the strategies of

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A Dictionary
ofReceivedIdeas 125

advertising and commodity display, contradictingthe curators' attempt to

camouflage the ways in which such strategiesdetermine contemporaryart
practiceand its exhibition.Through the drasticreductionofthework'smaterial
features and functionsto the sign of individualization and authentication,
Knight'sinstallationmade stillanotherconditionof the contemporaryworksat
Documenta transparent.
The restrictionof drawing, or forthat matterany otherpictorialmaneu-
ver, to the design of a logo incorporatingthe artist'ssignaturehad already been
proposed in Broodthaers'splasticplaques ofthe early'70s, as well as by Luciano
Fabro's repeated execution of his signature and address in neon. Using the
mode of conceptual tautologythen current,these works anticipated in their
materialstructurestheirinherentfunctionas self-promotion and theirultimate
status as commodities. In all of these works contemporaryaestheticpractice
acknowledgesits share in the conditionsof the cultureindustry,especiallyas it
is evidenced in an exhibitionlike Documenta. Only with the explicitintegra-
tion of theseconditionsdoes it seem thatthe workscan open up a dimensionof
criticalnegation and authenticity.
Baumgarten's inscriptionsin dark red classicistletterson the balustrade
beneath the rotunda of the central staircase listed the names of Indian tribes
fromthe Amazon region,where Baumgartenhad lived and done researchfrom

MonumentfortheIndian
LotharBaumgarten.
Nationsof SouthAmerica.1982.

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 126 OCTOBER

1979 to 1981. The names ofthesetribes,many ofwhichare threatenedwithex-

tinction,might have appeared to the uninformedviewer like a dada sound
poem. In such poems, as Walter Benjamin observed, the rediscoveryof the
purely phonetic dimension of language liberates the word fromits slavery to
meaning and simultaneouslyredeems the historicaland material body of lan-
guage. Thus, in Baumgarten'scommemorativeinscriptionsthe historicalover-
determinationof the current desire for primary expression- the romantic
longing for the Urspracheof the noble savage that has haunted art since the
nineteenthcentury-is dialecticallyrelatedto the actual historicaland political
existenceof those culturesthat are stillperceived by Western ethnocentricism
as exotic and primitive,and that continue to be destroyedin the name of en-
lightenment.

Lawrence Weiner. forcatalogue

Wrapper 7.
ofDocumenta
1982. (Photo:LouiseLawler.)

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