DOCUMENTA 12 MAGAZINE 1 2007/MODERNITY?
MODERNITY ?
AA.VV
Excerpt from the editorial of magazine 1:
The authors of this volume thus tell of specific, local modernities, look into developments that have been shifted or broken off, and explore alternative or parallel blueprints for modernity in which transitions have not developed or been considered and connections between spaces and practices have not been anticipatedconnections that have not been conceived from the perspective of an enlightened, modernist universalism of Western coinage nor a cynical postmodern relativism that speaks of multiple modernities (by which it means nothing more than markets), but rather are conceived from situations that are produced by the specific circumstances of local yet intertwined, and by all means emancipatory, aspects and utopias of modernity.
This first issue offers a kind of propaedeutics, an exemplary outline, and also takes up historical positions. The artworks that are portrayed here address the concept of form, a significant discussion in the course of modernity. Many of them are from the 1960s and early 1970s, a crucial moment in the history of contemporary art, in part because of the new relationship art developed toward its own history and the history of the avant-gardes, a relationship that even today offers a rich store of contradictory projections. We, the editorial staff of the documenta 12 magazines, hope that this issues kaleidoscopic view of specific moments, configurations, and positions of the apparatus of modernity will offer all its readers and visitors to documenta 12 useful material for navigating through one of the exhibitions leitmotifs. We look forward to hearing your questions in return.
Georg Schöllhammer
