engage 20

Gallery Education
as Critical Practice
and Research at
documenta 12
Carmen Moersch
Artist, educator, researcher

From June to September 2007, the 12th documenta exhibition,

regarded as the most important exhibition of contemporary art,
drawing attention from all over the world1 will take place Kassel,
Germany. For the first time, education has a prominent role in the
events framework and is one of the three so-called Leitmotifs
(chosen by artistic director, Roger Buergel), ensuring that
interpretation shifts from a marginal position to the centre
of the event. It becomes a part, not only of the exhibitions
curatorial concept, but also of its marketing: people who come
from the educational field but have no prior interest in art might
visit documenta to see how the education question is to be
answered via the exhibitions interpretive practice. In this article
I will try to outline the concept of documenta 12s education
programme, its interpretive tools and its significance in the
German context. I will also describe the intent to render
education at documenta 12 a critical practice and a
team-based action research project.
The German context
Rather than supporting an exchange with different local
groups, German art institutions tend to direct gallery education
at an expert audience. Since the 1990s, there has been intense
discussion about the possibilities of educating with art2, but
in spite of this, education programmes in the many publiclyfunded organisations exhibiting contemporary art form hardly
any part of this discourse.3 There are many reasons for the
well-established opposition of high culture and Soziokultur
in (West) Germany.4 It is based on the agendas of German
associations as much as on the tradition of German Idealism.
In Germany, almost every public concern, including cultural and
art education, is managed by associations. It is in part due to
the politics of these associations that public galleries have been
left out of the discussion. Another strong influence has been the
experience of National Socialism,5 a time in Germanys history
when art was exploited for political purposes much more openly
than it is now. The post war cultural politics of East Germany
has also played its part. To distance itself from the east, the
educational content of art in the Federal Republic of Germany
has tended to emphasise arts autonomy. Galleries with few
visitors were interpreted as a sign of resistance to the
Kulturindustrie (cultural industry) and the politicising of art.
Since 1989, the formerly western-dominated field of art has
diversified. In the context of anti-globalisation movements, the
critique of neoliberal economies, and the consequent interest
in local knowledges and practices, the presumed separation
between east and west and between high and popular culture

engage 20 Gallery Education as Critical Practice and Research at documenta 12

Maybe because the educational value was seen as embedded

within the exhibition, gallery education at documenta played a
marginalised, even non-existent role. Despite singular events
like the International University of Joseph Beuys or the
Besucherschule (Visitors School) of Bazon Brock, which
took place in the 1960s and 1970s, education at documenta
more recently has been conceived exclusively as a commercial
service of guided tours. Provided by an outsourced company,
it was expected to make profit, and not to cause expenditure.

has become obsolete. At the very least, the relevance of the

separation must be reviewed. However, as institutions have
a conservative attitude towards change, as shown by Mary
Douglas6 and others, it has taken some time for this realisation
to strike home.
Education at documenta
Documenta has taken place in the city of Kassel every five
years since 1955. It is closely linked with the history of post-war
Germany.7 The goal of the first documenta was to restore to
prominence the works, styles and artists so downgraded in the
German publics estimation as a result of the Nazis propaganda
exhibition Degenerate Art held in 1937. The main focus was on
abstract and expressionist art from Germany, other western
European countries and the United States. As well as a
reconstruction of what had been lost during the Nazi period,
the exhibition also served as a statement of the so-called Free
World against the cultural-political developments on the other
side of the nearby wall in the GDR.
Werner Haftmann, art historian and one of the brains behind
documentas 1 to 3, believed that the exhibition also had a
didactic brief: It is devised with our young generation in mind,
and the artists, poets and thinkers they follow, so that they
mayrecognise what foundations have been laid for them,
whatinheritance they must nurture and what inheritance
must be overcome.

In November 2006, a press conference for documenta 12 was

held in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the exclusive subject
of which was gallery education. This meant that a hitherto
marginalised practice was given centre stage in the public
interest, and became an integral part of the representational
structure of this major art event. On the one hand, this gave us
the opportunity to come up with suggestions for gallery education
that could be adopted well beyond the framework of one
documenta. It also allowed us to set the agenda for this field
of work and may even help contribute to a change in its status.
However, there are advantages to the traditional semi-visibility
of gallery education within institutions. If members of the
management do not really take it seriously then there is room for
experiment, for the kind of work which is not totally committed
to the demands of the institutions, or to the demands of the arts
or the audience. Gallery education, by default, has been able to
develop a relative autonomy.

Maybe because the educational

value was seen as embedded
within the exhibition, gallery
education at documenta
played amarginalised, even
non-existent role.
As the visibility of gallery education has increased during
documenta 12, so has the level of institutional control and
the pressure to succeed. At the same time, little has changed
regarding its structural conditions. For example, there is hardly
any budget for this area and it is unclear how educators can
have their say, even with respect to major decisions. It would
seem that the need for education is as strong within the
institution as it is for the public. Looking at it from this
perspective, the way documenta 12 handles its education

35

represents the classic annexation of a minority position by

the dominant one. What remains, despite such an annexed
position, is the attempt to keep conceptualising gallery
education at documenta 12 as a critical practice which
aims at not being governed in this way.8

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Education as critical practice

The claim that education is a critical practice had emerged by
the 1970s, in parallel with a museological debate encompassing
the arts and cultural studies that had an essentially feminist
approach.9 Initially the debate focused on opposing the
institutions mechanisms of exclusion and distinction, exposing
them publicly and making them negotiable. Later the process
of education itself came under critique, in respect of the white,
heterosexual matrix of its promises of emancipation, and its
inherent acts of paternalism.
More recently, approaches have been developed which are
interested in the perspectives of those not belonging to the
field of art.10 The art institution is being re-designed to fit into
complex, diverse social structures. Accessibility is seen less
as a moral imperative and more as an essential prerequisite
for an institutions survival. This is true at least for institutions
that want to critically consider their own environment, and
search for enriching, and also unnerving, perspectives and
practices. Education and inclusion are thus progressing in a
number of directions. The boundaries between the included
and the excluded, those in the know and those to be educated,
become blurred.11
Gallery education conceived in this way takes up a position
as a critical friend of the institution and of the art. It declares
its solidarity without affirming and continuing it navely. Instead,
it develops a constructive meta-discourse. This may be
concerned with the historicity, the structures and the power
games, or the, possibly divergent interests and contradictions
of the venue and the art at the centre of the debate. Gallery
education as critical friend assumes that everyone involved
in the creation of a situation has an interest in a positive
development. It realises that this is only possible by
communicating with the parties involved and by initiating
a permanent process of negotiation. It does not regard
education as a process of finding and communicating
truths, but as a never-ending transformation. Gallery
education as critical friend is based on the premise that one
cannot be outside of the conditions, nor can one have an
unbiased perspective.

Gallery education conceived

in this way takes up a position as
acritical friend of the institution
and of the art. It declares its
solidarity without affirming and
continuing it navely. Instead,
itdevelops a constructive
meta-discourse.
Local strategies
At documenta 12 we find ourselves confronted with the
demand to develop a concept in keeping with the paradigms
above, and at the same time one which works in the context of
an international mass event with an estimated 650,000 visitors
in 100 days. Two elements embedded in the exhibition will help
us to realise the potential of education as critical practice.
One is the basic principle of Roger Buergel and Ruth Noacks
curatorial strategy to work with and support local structures
and initiatives. The other is the documenta 12 magazines.
The central element of the local curatorial strategy is the
documenta 12 Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is located
in the Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, a community centre in the
northern part of the city, in an economically and culturally mixed
neighbourhood. Its rationale is as follows:
Documenta 12 aims to support its public in relating the artistic
works exhibited to their own lives. It is interested in local
knowledge and also in making the exhibition work on a local
level. It is therefore seeking dialogue with people in Kassel,
interested in questioning history and the present, in asking
about the issues and problems of the city and its residents.12
Since last year the Board has brought to life numerous
initiatives which deal with the forthcoming exhibition by
getting people from different backgrounds and perspectives
to respond to it. One example is the children and youth network
which opened its own exhibition in October 2005, showing the
various outcomes of children and young people dealing
creatively with two of the three Leitmotifs of documenta
12, What is Bare Life? and What is to be Done?13
The education team is currently developing numerous projects
in collaboration with the Board. Supported amongst others by

engage 20 Gallery Education as Critical Practice and Research at documenta 12

the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the education team will invite

to the exhibition different interest groups from outside of the
art world, with expert knowledge in their individual fields.
Strategies have been developed to create a connection
between this know-how, the questions of documenta 12
and its educators.

of fiction. These contributions from invited publishers, critics,

theorists and artists are being further discussed in so-called
quiet colloquia trans-regional, internal editorial conferences
and in an electronic editorial office, with the aim of gradually
shaping the principal conceptual themes for the documenta
12 magazine.

Education at documenta 12 thus provides an opportunity for

institutional players who are part of the German museum and
gallery circle to distance themselves from the paradoxical idea
more than 200 years old that they are guarding a treasure
which on the one hand must be introduced to the masses
but which, on the other hand, must be protected from them.

The documenta 12 magazine will subsequently assemble and

summarise these debates... Each issue will offer a perspective
elaborated jointly by more than 80 editors on one of the
core themes of documenta 12. These three readers are
conceived as an introduction to the exhibition, not only for a
specialist audience but also for a broader, interested public...
an international collaboration between various editorial
officeswill culminate in a component of the actual exhibition
inKassel.15

However, all these attempts must not be thought of as a

transfer of knowledge from gallery to visitors. Encarnacin
Gutirrez Rodriguez might call the exchange processes
possible within this framework cultural translations:
How do we trace the (un)translatability of social positionalities
in encounters based on a presumed common identity
expressed, for example, by a common language or gender?
How do we read the interruption or gap articulating the social
disjuncture in a global conjuncture? How can we unravel
moments of diffrance as a radical differential movement?
Could the term cultural translation serve as a tool to sketch
out the ambivalent character of these encounters occurring
within the tension of identity and difference?... Thus translation
procures understanding at the same time that it points to the
potentiality of un-translatability.14
These would entail the knowledge that all players involved are
part of a never-ending translation process and that such a
transfer could never be straightforward or without gaps which
themselves produce new meanings.
Documenta 12 magazines
The second important partner is the documenta 12 magazine.
One year prior to the exhibition at Kassel, over 80 print and
online periodicals from across the world were invited to
consider documenta 12s three leitmotifs Is modernity
our antiquity? What is bare life? What is to be done?
Since early 2006, influential journals in the realm of art, as well
as specialist publications operating in minority discursive fields
beyond the major art centres, have been publishing
contributions they themselves commissioned in relation to
documenta 12s three main themes essays, contributions
from artists, interviews, photo reportages, features and articles

A very interesting development is

becoming evident on account of
the use of digital media it could
be called strategically intentional
loss of control.
The magazines and education teams expressed a strong
mutual interest in collaborating at the exhibition. Currently, they
plan to use adjacent rooms at the exhibition site documenta
12 Halle and are working out ways for mutual collaboration in
the activities of the visiting editorial teams, the Advisory Board
and the education team. All three are a constitutive part of a
hegemonic event at the same time as working on it from a
critical and reflective distance.
Inhabiting the World
One of the documenta 12 education projects, whose foremost
objective it is to challenge the authorised speakers position, is
named Inhabiting the World. This project entails approximately
80 students showing adults around documenta 12. A format
well established within a number of British institutions, it is of
an experimental nature in the German context. What is special
about this is that young people are guiding adults, as so-called
peer-led initiatives are becoming more popular even in
Germany of late. Another aspect in which the project differs
from most established formats in the UK is the intensity of the
preparation. The students have been meeting regularly in small

37

exhibition, while at the same time participants can be watched.

Thus, gallery education will become an exhibit in itself. This
corresponds with documenta 12s third leitmotif the question
of how education is composed. Therefore, we are currently
training a team of 80 people to not only impart knowledge
about the art on show but to stage and perform gallery
education in the exhibition using the actual practice and
reflecting on it with the public. Members of the education team
are of various ages and professional and cultural backgrounds.
As students, they are in the process of developing their
particular approaches to the exhibition which might differ from
the curatorial agenda and from each other. The criteria for
selection included previous experience in art education and
a deep-rooted interest in reflecting on the experimental
development of this practice.

38

groups and at meetings attended by all involved since October

2006 to develop their own approaches to the contents of
documenta 12 which will open in the middle of June 2007.
A very interesting development is becoming evident on account
of the use of digital media it could be called strategically
intentional loss of control. Documenta 12 provides the
opportunity for podcasting. There will be iPods for hire during
the exhibition which contain contributions about the exhibition,
authorised by documenta 12. It will also, however, be possible
to download other MP3 files onto private iPods via the Internet
which will facilitate the generation of numerous stories and
counter-stories during documenta, the interpretation of which
will be enriched by these new perspectives. A further element of
uncontrolled dissemination is the blog for documenta 12 which
is being maintained by citizens of Kassel on their own initiative.16
It contains critical as well as affectionate commentaries and
meticulously gathered information which is often more up to date
than the official website. Documentas current artistic team does
not appear threatened by such initiatives but deals with them in
a playful, even supportive manner.
Dialogic tours
The focus of the education programme during an event like
documenta 12 remains the guided tours. This year, however,
they will be very different from the formats familiar to
documentas 10 and 11. Their concept is based on dialogue
and they will last at least two hours. The venues for these
conversations will be integrated into the exhibition architecture.
From here, it will be possible to watch what is happening in the

It is conducive to the development of experimental access

methods that the educators working conditions have improved
somewhat in comparison to previous exhibitions. While during
documentas 10 and 11 the educators were forced to bear the
financial risk completely, this time they have been given a
guaranteed minimum income, which means they are not as
dependent on the number of bookings for guided tours as they
have been in the past.
Education as team-based action research
One could say that the Advisory Board and the magazines,
as well as the knowledge generated by the audience,
educators and students and the partly uncontrolled
dissemination via iPods, are the interpretive tools with which
documenta 12 is working. Another interpretive tool is the
research project which accompanies the education programme,
to record and theorise it in cooperation with the educators.
During this process, the individuals involved develop their
own research question which they wish to pursue during the
exhibition. The team will exchange thoughts on these questions
at regular meetings. The intention is to channel the reflections
emerging during this time into a multivocal publication. A level
of expertise will evolve which will consider the documenta 12
education programme in the context of the theoretical debate
on art education and the documenta concept; suggestions for
future strategies will be brought forward.
So the research aims to ensure both a constant review of
education practice during documenta 12, as well as to initiate
a body of theory and insight which can be passed on to other
interested parties after the conclusion of the exhibition.

engage 20 Gallery Education as Critical Practice and Research at documenta 12

away from the experts charged with doing so to the individuals

involved, is also a governmentalist form of discipline. As the
participants willingness to cooperate is a prerequisite for team
research, an adjustment in attitude is required. Thus there is a
level of control of areas normally considered private. Articulating
their thoughts makes the individuals involved visible, which
makes them more controllable.19 It is therefore necessary to
attend to where the balance of power rests at any particular
time in each situation e.g. which unchallenged presumptions
determine the criteria for good or bad practice, who upgrades
or downgrades which attitudes and patterns of behaviour, and
above all, how much leeway there is in each case for a shift or for
refusal. This requires a good dose of self-irony and an awareness
of the positions of power and the fragility of theprocesses.

Experienced art educators like those with whom we cooperate

during documenta 12, command respect with their knowledge
of art, pedagogical processes and a reflective knowledge of their
own field of work. Using these as parameters, we are setting up
the accompanying research as an education project in itself,
based on two theoretical and methodological strands established
since the 1970s. The first of these is the educational processes of
action research, and team research in particular.17 This entails
working out and documenting the research questions in
cooperation with those involved, because only this approach
facilitates implementing the research results into future
professional practice. This implies that all involved are researching
and being researched, with research and development being
interdependent. During this process, scientific support takes
on the task of moderating and structuring, providing stimuli for
discussions and a sounding board, while disclosing and putting
up for discussion its criteria for analysis.
The second strand is the feminist, qualitative social research
based on poststructuralist theory. At its heart is not only the
question of how research results may become effective, but
the critique of science and representation. Within the feminist
tradition, female researchers regard themselves as political
players, working in cooperation with the researched women
on a liberation project. This approach, and in particular the
paternalistic dimension of giving a voice, has been critically
challenged mainly by black and non-western female theorists.18
Considering the above, documenta 12s research programme
should not follow nave paradigms of emancipation or
participation. On the contrary, shifting control and assessment

Despite these objections, a team-based approach is, in my

opinion, the best way to undertake research in gallery education.
Compared to the results achieved when researchers and
practitioners remain within their own groups, findings attained
are of a totally different character. All involved go through a learning
process which facilitates the further application of the gained
knowledge. In the multivocal publication that may emerge from
such research, the exchange between the contributors reflects
the research process itself.
Nowadays, disclosing your position as researcher in relation
to the researched has become an essential convention of
ethnography. A team-based arrangement, however, facilitates
not only the naming of the limits to the concept of voice and
the balance of power within the research project, but also its
deconstruction via manners of presentation. Paradoxically,
a multivocal publication facilitates just that if it fulfils, in the
words of Alecia Youngblood-Jackson, referring to Gilles
Deleuze, rhizovocality20 that is, if it contains prolific
contradictions, repetitions, interruptions and interferences
and significantly differing modes of female speech and
positions if it becomes a hypertextual, multi-layered fabric.
A team-based research setting, when taken seriously, does
not leave the researchers sitting in peace at their place of truth
production. The researched answer back and ensure that the
researcher can experience herself as an object of research.
This forces the constant reviewing of ones own prejudices,
opening them up for debate. Such a structure is based on
mutual acceptance and the willingness to shape conflict
situations instead of letting one be ruled by them, or wanting
to control them. Multivocal operations reduce the potential
harm of ignorance, ideological preconceptions and exploitation.

39

40

Undertaking research during the education process at an

exemplary event like the documenta is a great opportunity.
There are few up-to-date concepts for education in
contemporary art available in Germany. A discourse is only just
emerging, and criteria for this field of work have not yet been
developed. We hope to help fill these gaps within the documenta
framework. If possible, we would like to do this as part of a public
debate. We are looking forward to receiving feedback for our
work, especially if it comes from art educators who are working
in other places and within different structures. In the fight for
recognition and conceptualisation of experimental practice,
knowledge is generated by the exchange of experiences.
Notes
1 Quoted from www.documenta12.de
2 Title of a conference held by the Landesverband der Kunstschulen
Niedersachsen, Knstlerhaus Hannover 2004.

14 Gutirrez Rodrguez, E. Translating Positionality. On Post-Colonial Conjunctures

and Transversal Understanding. http://translate.eipcp.net/transversal/0606/
gutierrez-rodriguez/en
15 www.documenta12.de
16 www.documenta12blog.de
17 Stenhouse, L. (1975), An Introduction to Curriculum Research and
Development. London: Heinemann; Fichten, W., Gebken, U., Meyer, H. and
Obolenski, A. (2002), Oldenburger Teamforschung. Einblicke, 16(36), pp. 1417.
18 Abu-Lughod, L. (1990), Can there be a feminist ethnography? in Women and
Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 5(1), pp. 7-27; Spivak, G.C. (1986), In
other worlds: Essays in cultural politics. London: Methuen.
19 Lehmann-Rommel, R. Partizipation, Selbstreflexion und Reckmeldung:
Gouvernementale Regierungspraktiken im Feld Schulentwicklung in Ricken, N.
and Rieger-Ladich, M. (eds.) (2004), Michel Foucault: Pedagogische Lektren.
Wiesbaden: VS
20 Youngblood Jackson, A. Rhizovocality in Qualitative Studies in Education,
Sept-Oct 2003, 16(1), pp. 693710.
Images in order of appearance
1 Education team in front of documenta 12

3 Exceptions to this rule are individual initiatives, e.g. the group Kunstcoop, www.
kunstcoop.de

2 Press Conference on the topic of education, documenta 12, Neue

Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

4 The closest approximation to Soziokultur in English is community art.

Soziokultur, however, involves social workers rather than artists.

2 Exhibition of the first results of the children and youth network, CVJM Kassel,
Oct. 2005.

5 What is more, many visionaries of a critical inclusivity of art institutions during the
National Socialist period emigrated and continued their work in other places, e.g.
England or the USA. One such example is Alma Wittlin who, after her emigration
from Austria to London, took her doctorate with Carl Mannheim as early as 1941:
The Museum its History and its Tasks in Education.
6 Douglas, M. (trans. Bischoff, M.) (1991), Wie Institutionen denken. Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp [Original title: (1987), How institutions think. Syracuse, NY:
University Press]
7 Parts of the following information on the history of documenta are from the
website where comprehensive descriptions of each of the documenta exhibitions
can be found.
8 Foucault, M. (1999), Was ist Kritik. Berlin. For gallery education: Sturm, E. (2003),
Kunstvermittlung als Widerstand in Schppinger Forum fr Kunstvermittlung.
Transfer. Beitrge zur Kunstvermittlung.
9 For genealogy of education in art as a critical practice see, for example: Moersch,
C. Kunstcoop: Kunstvermittlung als kritische Praxis in Kittlausz, V. and Pauleit,
W. (eds.) Kunst-Museum-Kontexte. Perspektiven der Kunst- und Kulturvermittlung.
Bielefeld: Transcript.
10 See also, the Visual Dialogues project at Tate Britain; the education in art
programme by Chisenhale Gallery, London; or Lottie Childs projects at www.
malinky.org
11 Garoian, C. R. (2001), Performing the Museum in Studies in Art Education:
A Journal of Issues and Research. 42(3), pp. 234248. Garoian develops his
theories about a perfomative museum pedagogy using Austins Speech Act
Theory, Deleuzes model of the rhizome and Bakhtin and Artaud.
12 www.documenta12.de
13 To learn more about the three leitmotifs of the exhibition, visit www.
documenta12.de