documenta 15: Stadtmuseum Kassel and Hotel Hessenland

In this venue: FAFSWAG, Nhà Sàn Collective, Project Art Works, Safdar Ahmed, MADEYOULOOK

Exhibition title: documenta 15

Curated by: ruangrupa

Venue: documenta 15, Stadtmuseum, Hotel Hessenland, Kassel, Germany

Date: June 18 – September 25, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and ©documenta 15

After a 2015 reopening, the Stadtmuseum is now a modern museum in the historical building of the Kulturhaus on Ständeplatz. The focus of its permanent exhibition is the evolution of the city from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. The early history of the first settlements and the flooding catastrophes on the Fulda River are presented on a large table display. The history of migration in Kassel is mentioned only in passing.

documenta fifteen is showing artists who consider issues of representation and practice. For example, Project Art Works of Hastings, UK, is based on the recognition of neurological diversity and works with artists and makers with complex support needs. They are creating works of art and holding workshops in the Stadtmuseum, and exhibiting in the Fridericianum. The FAFSWAG collective, from Aotearoa, was founded in 2013 with the idea of questioning the lack of representation of queer, Indigenous people. It is presenting an archive of their own works. Nhà Sàn Collective, from Hanoi, Vietnam works on a playground installation that set sail from the Vietnamese notion of bến (harbor), transporting both architectural materials and their lived experience. Safdar Ahmed and collaborators present a video installation, zine, and vinyl record based on the lived experiences of refugees.

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The Hotel Hessenland was designed by Paul Bode, the brother of documenta’s founder, Arnold Bode, for a bombed-out lot destroyed in the war next to the Hugenottenhaus in Kassel’s city center. An unadorned green façade conceals the 1950s architecture of the listed building. Its elegant lobby features a spiral staircase, and the ballroom, which has not been used since the 1990s, held around eight hundred people in its heyday.

The hotel (including a room with the original 1950s furniture) stood vacant for about a year until documenta fifteen brought it back to life. During the exhibition, it is a guesthouse for artists. The ballroom is an exhibition venue showing MADEYOULOOK—an interdisciplinary artists’ collaboration from Johannesburg, South Africa. With their works they seek to provide decolonial perspectives on land, and are presenting a floor installation of around 100 square meters based on texts and images, as well as a sound installation.

documenta fifteen: FAFSWAG, 2022, installation view, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 13, 2022, Photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifiteen: FAFSWAG, Whãnau Wall (Portraits), without year, installation view, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 13, 2022, Photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: FAFSWAG, Jaimie Waititi, ReMoanafication – A Banana Tree in a Fanta Sky, 2021, installation view, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 13, 2022, photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: Nhà Sàn Collective, Nguyen Phuong Linh &Truon Que Chi, A Mangrove Apple Tree, 2022, installation view, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 17, 2022, Photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: Safdar Ahmed, Border Farce, 2022, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 13, 2022, photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: Safdar Ahmed, v.l.n.r.: Hazeen – Sovereign Murders, 2022, Border Farce, 2022, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 13, 2022, photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: Safdar Ahmed, top-down: Hazeen – Sovereign Murders, 2022, Alien Citizen, 2022, Stadtmuseum, Kassel, June 17, 2022, photo: Nils Klinger

documenta fifteen: MADEYOULOOK, Mafolofolo, 2022, installation view, Hessenland, Kassel, June 15, 2022, photo: Frank Sperling