Between recolonisation and decolonisation: Documenta 15 and the political decontextualisation of art
Associate Professor Birgit Bräuchler has together with Alexander Supartono published the article ‘Between recolonisation and decolonisation: Documenta 15 and the political decontextualisation of art’ in the journal Cultural Dynamics.
Documenta 15, a global exhibition of contemporary art that took place in 2022 in Germany, over a period of 100 days, stands out for two reasons: (1) for the first time documenta was under artistic directorship of an art collective, and (2) it was scandalized for displaying allegedly antisemitic art, mainly blaming Taring Padi, a group of progressive artists and activists from Indonesia.
In this paper the authors argue that the political decontextualisation of Taring Padi’s work and the virality of its scapegoating led to the recolonization of art that reinforced existing power hierarchies and denied space for dialogue and education.
In a second part, Bräuchler and Supartono change the scene and provide insight into Taring Padi’s work in Indonesia, as one of the creative forces leading to the end of the authoritarian Suharto regime in 1998 and evolving in the ensuing reformation era. Only through continuous political and cultural contextualisation can the artwork, and its symbolism, be understood as a way to come to terms with a violent past.
In a third part, the authors discuss the arts, hegemony and decolonisation more generally and in part four possible ways forward and how ‘the scandal’ can actually create productive dialogues and begin an unprecedented process of decolonising art exhibitions and museums.
The article is available as open access at Sage Journals' webpage.