Virtual platform created in honor of Okwui Enwezor
April 29, 2021
On April 29, documenta archiv launched Platform6, a virtual platform created in honor of Okwui Enwezor. This dynamic and evolving online project is intended as a place for animated discussion about Documenta11 and the current relevance of its discourses.
As an open, growing project, the platform will explore the Documenta11 exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor in 2002 and the continuing relevance of questions raised at the time. The focus is on discourses about truth, globalization, forms of collectivity and solidarity. Platform6 sees itself as a tribute to Okwui Enwezor, who died in Munich on March 15, 2019, and to his theoretical approaches and curatorial legacy. The virtual platform brings together historical material from the documenta archiv, including catalog essays, texts, videos, and photos. In addition, there are new contributions by curators, artists, and Enwezor’s collaborators, such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, Geeta Kapur, Wilfried Kuehn, Sarat Maharaj, Mark Nash, Monica Narula, Annie Paul, Yinka Shonibare, Terry Smith, Stephanie von Spreter, and Vivan Sundaram. Artists, critics, art historians, and Okwkui Enwezor’s former colleagues, as well as members of the general public, are invited to submit materials to the website. By providing free access to texts from the years 2001 and 2002 on the platform, the documenta archiv is also meeting the requirements of a contemporary Open Access Policy for the first time.
Platform6 builds on the idea of international discussion platforms initiated by Okwui Enwezor and his curatorial team on the occasion of Documenta11. In the run-up to the exhibition, they had organized four of these platforms that focused on current political, social, and artistic topics: “Democracy Unrealized” in Vienna, March/April 2001, and in Berlin, October 2001; “Truth and Reconciliation” in New Delhi, May 2001; “Creolité and Creolization” in St. Lucia, January 2002; and “Under Siege: Four African Cities – Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos” in Lagos, May 2002. Documenta11 in Kassel from June to September 2002 then functioned as the fifth platform, which opened up to global themes in a unique way and is considered the first exhibition of its kind to focus on decidedly non-European and postcolonial perspectives. Okwui Enwezor can be seen as the initiator and ambassador of this internationalization.
Platform6 is accessible at www.documenta-platform6.de.
Okwui Enwezor (b. October 3, 1963 in Calabar, Nigeria; d. March 15, 2019 in Munich, Germany) was the Artistic Director of Documenta11, a curator, author, art critic, and lecturer.
Selected curatorial activities: 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Documenta11, Kassel (2002); 2nd Seville Biennial (2006); 7th Gwangju Biennial (2008); 56th Venice Biennale (2015); Director of Haus der Kunst, Munich (2011–18).
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About documenta archiv
The documenta archiv was founded in 1961 by Arnold Bode and is dedicated to the archiving, documentation and research of modern and contemporary art and its sources, with particular focus on documenta exhibitions since 1955, curatorial practices, and documentary strategies. In addition to the documenta materials, the archiv’s resources include rich press collections, image and audiovisual media, a precious art library as well as numerous curator’s and artist’s estates. The documenta archiv is part of the documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, with the City of Kassel and the State of Hesse as shareholders. As a member of the association Arbeitskreis selbstständiger Kultur-Institute e.V. (AsKI) the archive pursues academic projects alongside its own collections and cooperates with universities and scientific and cultural institutes. In cooperation with the curatorial and technical staff of the gGmbH the archive realizes exhibitions on artistic and archival positions and related didactic programs.
