So how did the opening up of the global economy in turn affect the art world? This question is worked through in the first few rooms of 'The Global Contemporary', in the section entitled 'The Room of Histories'. Here ideas on the ‘biennalization’ of the art world, and the resultant mobility of artists brought about by biennales and residency programmes globally, are revisited. The viewer is taken on a crash course of the history of global biennales, international publications (there is a whole room dedicated to Rasheed Araeen’s Third Text), important exhibitions such as ‘Magiciens de la Terre’, and new (post-1989) art institutions - such as the notion of a Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) - which sprang up, changing the institutional landscape.
A large world map at the entrance to this section charts the global biennales but sadly omits South Africa's short-lived Johannesburg Biennale, and Cape, from this world history, leaving Dak’art as the only bastion of contemporary African practice. The panoramic infographic, The Accelerated Art World 1989-2011 (2011), created by Stewart Smith, Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Bernd Lintermann, however, picks up the Johannesburg biennales of the '90s in a world map which plots the emergence of biennales over time and highlights the associated travel routes taken by the participating artists. It is a visually engaging presentation of an extensive body of research that resists becoming too didactic.
In its exhibition design, 'The Global Contemporary' is forced to respond to the overwhelming architecture of the ZKM - a mega-exhibition complex incidentally also founded in 1989 (and which, beyond the contemporary art museum, also houses a library, media museum and sound lab) - by taking on the form of the typical 'blockbuster' exhibition, an exhibition type which has proliferated in recent history. The so-called 'blockbuster' show is characterised by a long list of participating artists, an extensive catalogue, and countless associated events, such as screenings, symposia and workshops, linked to the main exhibition. 'The Global Contemporary' also overflows into digital space, with its own dedicated website over and above the ZKM website. Although large exhibitions shows like The Global Contemporary appear to be similar in scale to biennales, their intentions are quite different. While the biennale is known for bringing together current aesthetic debates and aiming to engage on a critical level, the large-scale museum and the blockbuster show tend to be underpinned by a more pedagogical function. They must thus balance critical engagement with accessibility and appeal for a wider audience.
As a means to engage with the big question of globalisation in a more coherent manner, the exhibition is divided up into smaller themes. These themes range from ‘World Time: The World as Transit Zone’ to ‘Art as Commodity: The New Economy and Art Markets’, and operate like chapters in a book or essay, contributing to an overall narrative. From the over 100 artists and collectives on the exhibition, four South African artists were invited to present works. Zander Blom, Pieter Hugo and Moshekwa Langa are presented in the initial constellation currently on show at ZKM, while Ruth Sacks has been invited as an artist in residence to produce a new work for the show. To accommodate the works produced during the residency, spaces are designated and left empty in the exhibition venue. This gesture adds dynamism to the otherwise stern exhibition project, and puts the concept of mobility into practice within the exhibition space itself.
Picking up on Blom’s reference to form and the history of Modern art in his Drain of Progress series (2007), the work is placed in the context of the section 'Boundary Matters: The concept of art in modernity'. In this series, Blom reflects on a mediated experience of the Western art tradition which he experienced through reproductions in art history books. In his photographic set-ups, he applies these quoted forms as surfaces, now devoid of any historical trajectory. Hugo’s Nollywood series, with its strong reference to Nigerian popular culture, is presented in the section 'Life Worlds and Image Worlds'. Hugo plays with notions of a constructed reality by citing images from an experience of cinema but presenting a paradox between the stage context and the documentary format for which he is so well known. Langa's Untitled work from 2003 forms part of the 'Lost in Translation: New Biographies of Artists' section, where the biographical elements in Langa’s drawings are highlighted.
The works on show are categorised according to these themes through a floor plan to which the viewer must constantly refer. On the ground floor, where the works by Blom and Hugo are shown, the works are not given sufficient space, and the thematic categorisation is not apparent unless you painstakingly locate the work on the map in your hand. Without recourse to the map, the relevance of individual works to the chosen subcategory becomes lost, and the works from various themes overlap in a matter that might have been dialogical, but instead reads merely as cluttered. The works on the mezzanine level, where Langa’s work is presented, are hung more elegantly, making for a better experience of the individual pieces and minimising the salience of categorisation.
With its strong archival impulse and format, 'The Global Contemporary' makes you begin to think that perhaps this typology would work better in a book format, with categories ready for cataloguing and easily distinguished through chapters. In the exhibition format, however, the narrative logic is less successful, and powerful individual artworks often appear just conveniently slotted into an imposing curatorial framework. While 'The Global Contemporary' successfully presents multiple developments in the art world post-1989, it is likely that its real value as a exhibition may only be evident in time to come.
Bianca Baldi is an artist currently based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Recent projects include Natal Patria, looking at the mythological account of a South African sea monster in the 1920s, and Leaving your Every Hope Behind, an expedition to the literary site which is the entrance to the underworld.
