New York Film Festival 2024:
Curator’s Choice
An Interview with Dimitris Athiridis (exergue – on documenta 14)
By Edward Frumkin
How does the head of a government-supported institution speak independently and not on behalf of the government? That is one of Adam Szymczyk’s predicaments as the artistic director of the 2017 edition of documenta, the quinquennial international art exhibition rooted in Kassel, Germany, which expanded beyond that city’s bounds for the first time to include Athens in this 14th iteration, titled “Learning from Athens.” Greek filmmaker and photographer Dimitris Athiridis captures Szymczyk’s decision-making process from proposal to opening in exergue–on documenta 14, a 14-hour-plus documentary divided into 14 chapters.
documenta 14 earned notoriety for the price-tag of its second base in the Greek capital, which created a 5.4 million-Euro deficit, as well as its political intentions to investigate colonialism in art and European history. The doc’s 848-minute length mirrors the detail-oriented process of the curators mounting the show. Every unfolding hour in the film, which has been tagged the second longest documentary ever made (25 minutes shorter than Peter Watkins’s Resan), builds to create a treatise on the art market’s relationship with diplomacy. Athiridis’s exclusive access allowed him to excavate the economic transactions that sent documenta into debt, and enthrallingly hones in on the curation of the edition’s many luminous artworks.
Athiridis and I connected via email before the U.S. premiere of exergue at the New York Film Festival. We discussed curatorial sensibilities, art’s political implications, and documenta 14’s legacy.
Reverse Shot: You planned to make exergue two hours long before expanding it to 14 because of documenta’s complexity. How did you end up with this cut? Did you use the runtime as an homage to documenta 14?
Dimitris Athiridis: When I first got the idea to follow Adam and observe the process of making documenta 14, my natural response was to think of a feature documentary of around 120 minutes, as it is almost the standard in the industry. But little did I know about this institutional organization’s magnitude and complexity. During the two-year filming process, the number of places, curators, artists, and artworks involved, plus the historical context, produced so much content, and I mean useful content, that it was impossible to contain in 120 minutes. I realized that when we started editing, we saw how easily [we] produced long, beautiful, and meaningful sequences. Together with producer Christos Konstantakopoulos, we decided to explore this expanded narration mode. The 14 chapters, which can be viewed as episodes of a series, are tense and tight. The number 14 is a happy coincidence.
RS: The runtime also permitted you to present the narrative non-chronologically at times. For example, Chapter 3 occurs between the post-Athens opening and pre-Kassel opening in 2017. Then, Chapter 4 begins with the curators in India in February 2016. What inspired you to present some of the events in exergue in a nonlinear structure?
DA: Editing observational material, you’re often faced with issues of precise exposition. [The film] moves forward or backward in time so the viewer can comprehend the facts of the film, and what is happening in an elegant way without the use of voice-over, explanations, captions, or other non-observational devices. In a way, viewers participate in the editing process as they “ask” a question and find the answer. And this is a very satisfactory payoff.
RS: When did you know you would include archival materials and have it speak to its current timeline and different realities?
DA: We have to consider the historical context of documenta exhibitions and how they were established as an international institution a few years after WWII in Germany. documenta, organized every five years, is a precise instrument for documenting the contemporary world and its art. Almost every artistic director of documenta is relating and working within this historical context. Adam Szymczyk proposed a need to find again the urgency of making an art exhibition like the first documenta back in 1955 when Germany was meant to reconnect to the Western world as it occurred after the war. Of course, it was an issue of U.S. soft politics as well. But now we see certain phenomena appearing again with the rise of ultra-right-wing and nationalistic political views. The decision to implement historical material into the narration was not mine. It was interwoven within the narration of the exhibition as Adam and the curators imagined and realized it.
RS: The jazz and orchestral instrumental tracks are intrinsic to exergue. What were your aims for exergue’s soundtrack?
DA: I knew from the start that not one [particular] music style would be enough to support and represent the multitude that is presented in the film. A lot of music comes from the material itself, music used or created by the [documenta 14] artists themselves, or some choices by Adam, music that he was listening to at the time. I also made my own choices and used an original soundtrack by two excellent composers [Ted Regklis and Paolo Thorsen-Nagel]. For me, music is integral to the film’s construction and narration. I prefer to secure it early on and edit the film [based] on the music and not dress it with music afterward.
RS: Adam, the curators, and the artists know how to compose themselves on camera as they’ve been constantly photographed. Did their past on-camera experience make them open to you? As the only person filming, what was your approach to being intimate with your participants?
DA: They may have had some media experience, but it is quite different when you are filmed for two years. I assume an anthropological assimilation approach when I am involved in this kind of observational filming. I work alone, [did] camera and sound myself, and I follow, observe, and live with these people. After a while, it [becomes] clear if this relationship built on trust works or not. I [didn’t see myself] as the [one-person] filming crew. I was considered the endeavor's chronicler and a member of the team.
RS: Art has been corporatized at recent biennials. Volkswagen sponsored documenta 14. How do you see the curators maintaining artistic freedom and not compromising their curation to fulfill sponsorship and financial needs?
DA: That is a very tricky question about the facts of life, and there is no easy answer. We [currently] see that many cultural or academic institutions are faced with the same question of funding related to artistic or academic freedom. So, it is mostly about understanding different forms of power, soft power, hard power, politics, etc. The film showcases this struggle on this particular occasion, which is very indicative of where things are leading.
RS: Money rules the world.
DA: Hard facts of life. Money itself is not a problem. A lot of money is used for good purposes. I guess it is the greed for power and the violence that manifests near a lot of money that concerns me. I would prefer love, beauty, and art to rule the world, which, of course, is idealistic. However, as a reminder, we can try to make a small difference in our practice.
RS: Police brutality in Athens and the 2015 Beirut attacks happened during the making of exergue. Chapter 4 is titled “Being Safe Is Scary.” Did you, your crew, or the documenta team ever feel that you were in danger during filming? Do you think it’s scary to be safe?
DA: Yes. It was scary in Beirut, hearing gunshots or distant bombs exploding or watching the news about the Bataclan massacre or arson in Athens set by fascists. It was scary, and terror is our new normality and a commodity. “Being safe” is a human right, but it is also a political instrument to tolerate more terror. It is obvious that efforts to feel safer lead to extreme measures, which is scary. “Being Safe Is Scary” is an inscription on the facade of Fridericianum, the main venue of documenta in Kassel. It is a genius artwork by Banu Cennetoğlu.
RS: Curators and artists have different intentions regarding the exhibition of an artist’s work. Yet they have overlapping values in the piece’s presentation. How do you see the parties’ visions aligned in these relationships?
DA: There were many curators and artists in this documenta. I could say that each curator-artist encounter is unique, depending on the personalities of the people involved and the nature of the work. And I must say that these encounters are very fragile moments with different vulnerabilities involved. I am happy that I was given access to film these moments in real-time. I admired Adam when he collaborated with artists for the profound respect he appointed to artistic genius and the protective framework he provided for the artistic vision’s realization within the exhibition’s context. Each work contributes to the total narrative of the exhibition, so there must be mutual trust as well.
RS: Given the controversies surrounding recent documenta editions, what do you think the future holds for the organization?
DA: documenta is an art institution funded mainly by the German state in different forms: cities, countries, and so on. So, politics are interwoven with art production, sometimes working together or against each other. [The] documenta 14 story showcases this impact on the funding level of this relation. documenta 15 etched a very sensitive issue for Germany that was followed up with the unique awkwardness of German politics towards Israel. As we know, Angela Merkel pronounced Israel’s security a “reason of state.” That leaves little space for creative, critical perspectives that art is used to, and that is an issue. Back during the filming, we could see the “writing on the wall,” as one says. A crisis was looming. I am not sure if I consider this a downfall. documenta is a strange entity, and it thrives on crises, hard criticism, and reinventing itself. The institution belongs administratively to the city of Kassel and the German state. Still, we have to acknowledge other institutional levels and partners as documenta cannot exist without the artists and the art world. The question, as Adam notes in the film, is not only about artistic freedom but freedom in general. We will see what the artists have to say.