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MllB[ and more, the subject ofan exhibition tends not be the display ofarnvorks, butthe exhibition of the exhibition as awork of an. Here, the Documenta team, headedby Harald Szeemann, exhibits (arnvorks) and exposes itself (to critiques).

The works presented are carefully chosen touches of color in the tableau* thatcomposes each section (room) as awhole.

There is even an order to these coiors, these being defined and arranged according to thedrawn design*u ofthe section (selection) inwhichtheyare spread out/presented.

These sections (castrations), themselves carefully chosen "touches of color" in thetableau that makes up the exhibition as awhole and in its veryprinciple, only appearby placing themselves under the wing of the organizer, who reunifies aft by render-ing it equivalent everywhere in the case/screen that he prepares for it.

The organizer assumes the contradictions; it is he who safeguards them.

It is true, then, that the exhibition establishes itself as its own subject, and its ownsubject as a work of art. The exhibition is the '\ralorizing receptacle" in which art isplayed out and founders, because even ifthe arlwork was formerly revealed thanksto the museum, it now serves as nothing more than a decorative gimmick for thesurvival ofthe museum as tableau, a tableau whose author is none other than theexhibition organizer.

And the artist throws her- or himself and her or his work into this trap, because theartist and her or his work, which are powerless from the force ofhabit ofart, have nochoice but to allow another to be exhibited: the organizer.

Hence, the exhibition as atableau of art, as the limit of the exhibition of art.Thus, the limits art has created for itself, as shelter, turn against it by imitating it,and the refuge that the limits of art had constituted are revealed as its justification,reality, andtomb.

D.B.,Februaryr97z

@ Daniel Buren

. Translator's noter The French word tableau hs multiple mean-ings; it can re{er to a painting, a scene, a chart, a lable, a board,a picture. Since there is no adequate English translation for Bu-ren's literal and metaphorical use of the word here, il is prefer-able to retain the original.

.. Translatols notei Buren uses the word dess(e)i4 a combi-nation of dessi4 drawing, and dessem, plan or design,

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DanielBuren

$IY do I precede this

Simplybecause it seebe curated by an arcabsolutely linked-

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i$lY do I precede this brief reflectionwith a texr rhat is more than thirryyears old?

simplybecause it seems thatthe question/proposition"shouldthe next Documentabe curated by an artist?" and what I wrote int97z about another Documenta areabsolutely linked.

Thirry-ffio years ago, Harald szeemann-who as the general organizer of theexhibition was the first to be concerned by this texr-found it intelligent, naturally,but excessive, and hundreds ofleagues away from his personal attitude, which heclaimed was exclusively that of a person who, after having analyzed the productionof the largest number of living artists, was choosing those who seemed to him toproduce the most interesting works and, from there, was putting them together inthe most suitable manner by arranging their works in the best possible fashion andeven, often,byfollowingthe desires ofthosewho knowbest howto express them.

what could be more natural than this response? It is a bit like a good deed. The per-fect organizer's good deed. There is no reference to the personality ofthe organizerin this declaration, nor any pretension to "create" the event. This implies that ifthere is an event, the invited artists will have created it, not the organizer!

Nevertheless, and despite his comments or his denials, my text indicated and couldnot have invented that other things were already at play.

These are things which H. s., more than any other organizer of the period, had al-ready brought to light, since he was by far the most gifted and easily the best of histime (and ofthose who, afterward, tried to imitate him) in the realm ofgroup exhibi-tions. Hence, it seems to me, the accuracy of the text "Exhibition of an Exhibition,"which analyzed the possible perverse effects oflarge group exhibitions that wereemerging at the stan of the most promising exhibition organizef s career.

Judging from a tendency that could already be felt in tgTz,today we can assert rhatthe proclivity ofmost exhibition organizers is to conform as exactly as possible towhat this text was already anticipating. so much so that it has become a sort of srylis-tic epidemic, an anisdcgenre in itself, arampant competitioninwhichth eorganizerproclaims as loudly as possible that he or she is the ar-tist of the exhibition, and tosuch an extentthat Harald Szeemann, who found myr97z text attributingto himthe

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role ofprincipal artist ofthe exhibition inappropriate, today claims to be an "authorofexhibitions,"undoubtedlyout offear ofbeingoutdone and of appearing simplylikea nice organizer from the past. However, one must be careful to not misunderstand;the big change in this late-coming proclamation is not that Harald Szeemann hastransformed the way in which he has conceived of his exhibitions, nor that he hasover-personalized everl,thing he has undertaken. It is simpiy that, at the end of thesixties and at the beginning ofthe seventies, no exhibition organizer concernedwithhis or her career would have dared claim out loud that theywere the authors ofwhatever exhibition they were in charge of, and they would have been even less inclinedto claim theywere the artists! Even ifit had been the case, to say so would have deni-grated the invited artists, who would not have hesitated to let them know in no uncer-tainterms, andwhowouldhave undoubtediyrebelled. Buttimeshave changed (fig. t):

We have come fu1l circle and the generalized passivity of artists in the face of thissituation is even more serious than it was thirly years ago. Since if in r97z thevcould still turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the ways in which they were being used.the straightfor"wardness of our epoch (which others might call clmicism) makes itentirely improbable that anists today do not know what is being plotted and what isbeing declared and the kinds ofdiscourses surrounding them!

Just as it is hard to know if the chicken or the egg came flrst, it is also diffrcult to makeout if this situation stems from the suicidal passlvity of artists, automatically engen-dering organizers capable ofbypassing or even replacingthem at a moment's notice.or if the artists, having other fish to fry when confronted with the impertinence o:certain organizers/manipulators, would have literally pushed themselves to the sideby disparagingly watching the spectacular emphasis of the exhibition organizer tchis own detriment, and above a1i to the detriment of hls work as the exclusive centerof the exhibition, which it naturally should be, for better or for worse.

Today, it is possible to imagine that we are not far-off from having a large-scale in-ternational exhibition directed by a great organizer-author who proposes the flrs:exhibition without any artists at a1ll

Enough of these nightmares, and without wanting to specifu all of the reasons fc:such a slippage here, it is certain, however, that the affirmation ofone (the organizeras author or artist) and the passivity/acceptance ofthe other (the work ofart as a

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Harald Szeemann at Documenta 5, 'l 972

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colored stroke in a large fresco that escapes him or her) are two sides ofthe sameproblem: the present crisis of living an and how it is shown.

It is also, in most cases, proofthat the couple "organizer versus invited artists" is nolonger homogenous, but one that looks even more like a forced marriage just askingto be broken up. All the more so since, as everyone today knows, this infernal cou-ple is made up of one who dominates and one who is dominated. The same peoplealways play these roles, without any possibility for reversal. The former are alwaysmore dominating while the latter are always more dominated.

However, if most invited artists were to refuse the role assumed by cenain exhibi-tion organizers, it is worth betting that theywould no longer work in the atrociousway that some of them have been working, and we would never again see RobertR)rman's works on pink walls under the pretext of innovation!

I also have to assert here, so as not to be misunderstood, that I cannot imagine for onesecond an ambitious group exhibitionwithout an organizer. The role ofthe organizeris very imporrant in the selection and the mise-en-scdne, when it is necessary andit seems impossible to me to do without it. The organizer exists and must continueto exist. I am not callinginto question their existence,just their manner ofexisting.

However, the problem underscored above-that is, the meaningless, because exces-sive, domination exercised by the author or artist-organizer-is even more crucialwith regard to large-scale international exhibitions today; from Kassel to Venice,from Lyon to Istanbul, this has been evident for years. All ofthe large-scaie interna-tional exhibitions are currentlyin a state ofcrisis, and I would not be surprised ifoneofthe major causes is the problem we are concerned with here: the reversal ofrolesratiEring the organizer as author and the ar-tist as interpreter.

Is it possible todayto do without the organizer-artist or the organizer-author and re-

21 0 tum to the organizer-interpreter? In the absolute, the response is yes, ofcourse, bur itseems to me that the current situation is not movingin this direction; onthe contrary-.

we want to personalize everything, spectacularize everything, and individualizeeverything to the extreme. we no longer accept that the organizer remain in theshadow of the invited artists.

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VVlEre Are the Misb?Daniel BUH

In the face of such a trend we can understand better why, with the help of laziness,

organizers/authors have attained such importance in relation to the selected aft-ists. Instead of studying the dozens and dozens ofworks presented, we can simplytransfer all interest, criticism inciuded, onto the shoulders of a single person' theorganizer-authorl What a relief! We put a1l of the works in the same basket and wethrow praise or criticism at whomever has put them in it and carries it; that is, theauthor of the compilation. And just as we go from compilation to compilation, we gofrom exhibition to exhibition, taking off or adding one or two pieces just as we takeofforadd a singer ortwofrom a compact disc.Andthereyouhave itlWe are made tobelieve that we have an entirely new exhibition every timel

So, the question remains: How do we get out of this cul-de-sac, this vicious circle?

From this perspective, your question has the advantage of redistributing the cards.

Could a large-scale exhibition like Documenta be entrusted to an artist? If thetendencyremarkeduponhere continues to hold, myresponse wouldundoubtedlybe,fres." For the artist-organizer would erase the faults inherent in the organizer-artist.Forexample,itwouldbeworthbettingthatthe announcement of an aftist-organizer,whoever he or she might be, would cause an immense outcry of lamentations from

the choir ofthe majority ofall the other panic-stricken and destabilized artists.

This will be a varied and serious song. Its reasons for being will be intelligent, stu-pid, and revealing at the same time. They will be founded on jealousy on the onehand, and fear of the artist-organizer's positions on the other. Artists, exacerbatedindividualists if ever they existed, would show that their corporatlst spirit is not asremote as it may seem. One would notice, then, that the critiques suddenly raisedby the announcement of the name of an attist-or ganizer had never been raised bythe announcement ofany organizer-artist. This a priori predictable reaction alreadybears within itseifthe fruits ofextremely positive debates, for they reveal a state offact that has been occulted for over thirtyyears.

Undoubtedly other kinds of faults inherent to the choice of the artist in questionwould crop up, but given that an experiment of this sort has yet to be attempted(apan from much more modest experiments undertakenhere andtherebyartists asdifferent as Duchamp or even Kosuth or myself), it seems abittoo earlyto mention it.What other reasons-besides opening up a real debate-are there for welcoming an

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artist-organizer, eventhough such a possibilitywould certainiynot be revolutionary?First and foremost, an initiative ofthis sort couldbringthe dulled, even anesthetized,anistictribe out ofthe torporithasbeeninforyears now. Second, it seems to me thatthe artist in question would continue working as usuai but in another way, and thisparameter alone would immediately al1ow for a clear perspective on the exhibitionitself, both for the artists who would accept or refuse such an invitation and for those(amateurs and professionals) who would critique the exhibition once it opened.

Notv, this putting into perspective with regard to aftistic work over the long term,verifiable in the works, does not exist when an exhibition organizer, whatever hisor her talent, suddeniy becomes an organizer-araist or author of an exhibitlon. Hisor her talent is linked to nothing else than the exhibition in question and the themehe or she has decided to develop, which in most cases is a bit too insubstantial tobe a "work"l However, the theme chosen by the usual organizer-author, which willenable commentators to exercise their eloquence, is never remarked upon by theinvited artists, whether it interests them or not. They will just as soon agree to par-ticipate in the exhibition ofanother (or the same) author-organizer that develops adiametrically opposed theme, which their (same) works will aim to illustrate as well(that is, as poorly) as the preceding exhibition, period, and so on.

Ifexhibition organizers todaydefendthe status ofauthorit means thattheyconsiderthat the work resides in the exhibition produced (which becomes their work) andthat, as I wrote intgTz,tlrre exhibited works, the fragments that make up the corpusofthis exhibition, are not really arrworks but have become, at best, accents, paftic-ular details in the serrrice of the work in question, the exhibition of our organizer-author. At the same time-and this is where the problem has become pointedenough to create the crisis in which we flnd ourselves-the "fragments" and other"details" exhibited are, by definition and in most cases, completely and entirely for-eign to the principal work in which they are participating, that is, the exhibition inquestion. On the other hand, if the organizer of the exhibition is a full-time anist,lt is wonh betting that he or she will take enormous risks and that his or her visionwill be more explicit, less neutral, more engaged; in a word, it will make more sensethan that of an organizer by profession, whether or not he or she proclaims him- orherself an author. The latter will only be able to work by using the work of others or,if you 1ike, byusingwork that is docile enough to f,t into their own discourse, whichstrongly risks correspondlng to current, fashion, or tastes.

Whffi Are tfE A,'tists?Danid BUH

For at least thirry years now there have been abundant examples of organizers rig-ging up group exhibitions in their own way in order to make '$,iorks"; and their ownwayis not always up to the works employed, to saythe least. A1l the more so because,in most cases, their "works" are nothingbut even more large-scale imitations of cer-tain artistic movements or research that they pillage for their own benef,t, r,r-Llgar-ize, and. attach to all of the invited artists, who, generally lacking in mistrust, flndthemselves cursed with a costume that does not f,t them, when it isn't a big red nosethat the organizer-author/clown has placed smack in the middle of their face. Atleast with an organizer chosen from among artists (those capable of assuming andwilling to take on such a delicate and dangerous role would ceitainly not be very nu-merous !) we would know a little bit more precisely the spirit in which they positionthemselves in relationship to the world. We could read the exhibition with muchmore perspective and more seriously than we seem to be able to do under the reignofthe organizer-authors. At least, I think so.

Yet, why does such a possibiliry (that an anist organize the next Documenta) seemso originai and so surprising, even improbable, once it is considered in the space ofthe plastic arts, whereas, a priori, it would not pose any problems in other culturalrealms? Without pretending to respond to this strange situation, it could be usefuito look around andto tryto understandwhywhat maybe evident elsewhere is hardlyconceivable here.

Who is most often nominated to be the head of an opera house? A highly skilled mu-sician (interpreter, composer, or director ofan orchestra, or all ofthose things atonce). Is an artist, a painter or sculptor, nominated to run an important museum?Never. Actors, directors, authors, or Someone who engages in a1l three activitiesare frequentlyhired to run theaters. Are lMng artists nominated to mn art centers?Never. Publishing houses often entrust complete collections-from the choice ofauthors to the wdting of texts-to a writer, a philosopher, a novelist, or an essayist.Are artists named directors or edltors-in-chief of an magazines? Neverl

It is not rare to flnd writers, playn'rights, musicians, and directors in charge of ru-brics treating literature, theater, music, and cinema in journals, magazines, or otherreviews. Is it possible to find an afi criticism column written by an artist? Neverl

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The only exception to this quasi-generalized and systematic exclusion of ar-tistsfrom positions in which decisions are made is in the very area inwhich theywork: artschools. Why? Ir's a mystery!

The aim ofthese reflections is not to study the reasons for the absence ofartists onthe front lines of all of the domains cited above, where certain of them, if it were pos-sible and ifthey so desired, could undoubtedly have their place. yet, ifwe wager thatwe could decipher the reasons, would we be any closer to knowing what an artist istoday? what is their role in society? what do we offer them and why? what do wenever offer them and why? what role do we assign to them, realty? And why doestheir place seem to become even more restricted as time goes by?

Given the far from briiliant state that contemporary art finds itself in today, it seemsentirely appropriate that cer-tain ar-tists couid asser-t their presence exactlywhere itis never solicited. The organizers/authors/anists oflarge-scale exhibitioris provideresults we already know: Documenta transformed into a circus (Jan Hoet) or evenas a platform for the promotion ofcurators who profit from the occasion in orderto publish their thesis in the form ofa caraiogue (catherine David) or as a tribune infavor of the developing politically correct world (okwui Enwezor) or other exhibi-tions by organizer-authors trying to provide new merchandise to the ever voraciouswestern market for art consumption, which, like all markets, must ceaselessly andrapidly renew itself in order not to succumb, hence, in order to bring about: Magz'-cians of theEathbyJ. H. Martin, the chinese andthe breathless.!outh-ism,,of H. s.

others, undoubtedlytoo influenced bythe history ofart ofyesterday and today, for-get that even if they do admire the gesture of a creator iike Duchamp for having puta mustache on a fake Mona Lisa, or the research of artists like sylvie Fleury or JohnArmleder, this does not give them the right to hang a Bernard Buffet on a soi Le wittwail drawing, or to place a doghouse sold by Gucci in front ofa claude Lev6que., Indoing so, at least they should not add to the taste for such banality the pretensionof calling themselves an "author" by generalizing the attitudes of artists who havealreadyproved themselves elsewhere on the scale of an entire exhibition.

To be an organizer-author is surely not to make fun of art at its own expense, espe-cially since there are already a good number of anists who do so quite well and thusone is only shamelessly imitating them.

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There are swarms of examples of doubtful worth and I think, at such a level of "non-thinking," that occasionally putting an artist (or several artists) in charge of a large-scale exhibition like Documenta would help to redistribute the cards' as I indicatedabove, and perhaps help us to see the questions that living artists today are posing,whatever their age, a bit more clearly.

Ifit is indispensable that every organizer play a creative role when exercising hisor her profession (whether they are artists themselves or curators), then it is lessobvious that the result ofthis creativity, the exhibition produced, is a work in itself.And if this is the case, what about the "works" that make it up?

Therefore, the question that remains, and the one worth asking, is whether an ex-hibition that brings together a large number of different amvorks can become a'fuork" itself.

Whether the response is yes or no, from the moment that a group exhibition issigned and defended by a veritable author who would also be, for the space ofthisexhibition, its organizer, strong evidence would be given on this subject that oniy anartist, it seems to me, can provide today. r

@ Daniel Buren

Previously published as: "Exhibition oIan Exhibition," Documenta 5: Befra-gung der Realftet - Bildwelten heute,ed. Harald Szeemann, exh. cal. Kassel,l\y'useum Fridericianum, 1 972, Section17, p. 29; and "Where Are the Art-isis?" in Jens Hoffmann (ed.), Ihe NexlDacumenta Shauld Be Curated by anArtlst (New York and Frankfud, 2004),pp.26-31.

I Generallyspeaking,theartmag-aines created and linanced by artiststhemselves are those whose editors-in-chief or associates do eveMhing forthemagaine, and those that are publishedirregularly and that never fail to coliapse(which does diminish their quality).

2 This is in relerence to an exhibi-tion in Avignon during the summer ol2003 signed by Eric Troncy, organizer-author o1 the exhibition.

Where Are the Arlists?Daniel Buren

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