the first documenta

When artist, designer, and architect Arnold Bode initiated the first documenta in Kassel/Germany 1955 he probably had no idea that this would become the world's largest and most influential art show over the next half century.


In 1955 the devastating Second World War launched by the Nazis was a mere 10 years over, the rubble from the allied air bombardments was still piled up in German cities, and 100,000's of POWs had yet to return from the camps in the Soviet Union.

The documenta aimed at reconnecting the German art scene with the international culture of the 20th century. It coincided with the country's economic recovery, lovingly named "Das Wirtschafts Wunder" (economic miracle). The strength of its new currency, the DM ("Deutsche Mark"), boosted the start of a growing tourist stream to the beaches in Southern Europe. It was one year after Germany had become the triumphant Soccer World Cup champion and one year before her return to the club of nations participating in her first post war Olympics.

Germany was separtated into two states, an East and a West Germany. Kassel was located close to the "Iron Curtain". It was a dangerous border along which the two hostile capitalist and communist blocks had deployed their newly developed nuclear arsenal with the missiles pointing at each other. Both German states had recently been rearmed and had joined the two military organizations NATO and the Warsaw Pact respectively. Both German states were now firmly entrenched in the Cold war which ended after several decades with the implosion of the Soviet empire and the re-unification of Germany.

Into this fragile status-quo burst an international art event that became a cultural institution of global dimensions even if it only takes place every five years. Let's see how the 12th incarnation of this show of 100 days sheds new light on the needs and desires of our time. Can today's artists provide deeper insight and can their art engage our hearts and minds? That's the question I will be asking as a child of the fifty years of the short history of documenta.

We will soon find out when the doors open to what hopefully is another thought provoking documenta.