Ruangrupa at the Documenta and the artist collectives of modernism – Munich

It has been a long time since artists’ collectives have been discussed in such detail and with such controversy as the Indonesian collective Ruangrupa is currently doing. This is the artistic director of the world art show Documenta Fifteen, which begins in four weeks in Kassel, and has been confronted with accusations of anti-Semitism for weeks. The group, which those responsible for Documenta wanted to break with traditional Western views of art and include the view of the Global South, rejected all accusations. Recently, however, a planned series of talks, the composition of which had primarily sparked the allegations, was canceled.

Ruangrupa was founded in 2000 in Jakarta, Indonesia. As the vocation of the group as artistic director of Documenta Fifteen was announced in February 2019, the art world was surprised, but commented on the personnel mostly positively. Among other things, a fresh start was promised after the previous edition, Documenta 14, in 2017, which had been shaken by financial and political scandals. And the magazine Art Review At the end of the year, the Indonesian collective promptly placed third on the annual “Power 100” list, i.e. those “personalities” who are considered to have had an influence on the art world worldwide.

The collective’s work is based “on a holistic social, spatial and personal practice that is strongly connected to the Indonesian culture, in which friendship, solidarity, sustainability and community are central”, it says about Ruangrupa, the name means so much such as “art space” or “spatial form”. And what could be better than when a group of artists create the opportunity, in friendship, solidarity, sustainability and community, to enable themselves and others to exchange artistic ideas across borders and nations?

There have always been artist collectives with an international focus

But of course the idea is not new. There have always been artist collectives that were internationally oriented, that emphasized the network character of their group, that focused on enabling collective work – regardless of whether the groups were positioned in a similar or opposite way.

Since last year, the Munich Lenbachhaus has been presenting artist collectives and their concerns that act in this spirit. Under the heading “Group Dynamics”, an exhibition on the Blue Rider made the start, which worked out relationships with national and international groups, but also with folk art or children’s worlds (it will probably be on view until spring 2023). In addition to this, the show “Collectives of Modernity” can currently be seen there as part 2 of “Group Dynamics”, which examines worldwide artist collectives, their works, their influences and their relationships. Above all, she illuminates the emergence and development of the groups against their respective social and cultural background, in relation to international modernization movements and anti-colonial liberation struggles. What at first glance seems backwards – it’s about the period between 1910 and 1980 – turns out to be highly topical on closer inspection.

The following collectives were selected: Action and Mavo, both from Tokyo, and Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai from Kyoto, Artistas del Pueblo from Buenos Aires, the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (from today’s Mumbai), Crystalists from Khartoum, Grupa “ar” from Łódź and Grupo dos Cinco from São Paulo, the Casablanca School, the Khartoum School and Nigeria’s Nsukka School, Pakistan’s Lahore Art Circle, Martín Fierro from Buenos Aires, and Wuming Huahui/No Name Group from Beijing. The groups are assigned individual rooms so that the viewers can immerse themselves in the visual and imaginary worlds of the respective group. But there is also a room in which the networks and relationships of the artist collectives are represented by means of connecting lines that criss-cross the walls.

In addition to the “real” connections, the curators of the Lenbachhaus – no fewer than eight are listed, which roughly corresponds to the entire curatorial staff of the museum – have laid imaginary lines. They show possibilities of how, in retrospect, one can imagine cross-connections in an art scene that was becoming more cosmopolitan at the time due to increased mobility. Because what is today considered an indispensable postulate of contemporary art was already relevant in the 20th century: Art is not created in a vacuum, but is based on exchange and social interaction. Sometimes different people come to similar conclusions.

Doesn’t this “thinker” from Nigeria’s Nsukka School look like a work by Picasso? But then the wonderful subtitle “Our Thoughts Differ” exposes the reasoning for what it is: a completely Eurocentric view. And why shouldn’t members of the Wuming Huahui/No Name Group paint like a Kandinsky, a Marc, or a Münter?

Open detailed view

Let’s call it massive influence tendencies, let’s call it an almost copyist-like parallelism – each approach connects different topics, different social realities. Artist collectives, which are characterized by political and social demarcation efforts, find new visual languages. One of them is the Casablanca School. Six artists and university teachers who, in 1969 with a kind of manifesto exhibition in the middle of Marrakech and in the open air, wanted to distance themselves from the concept of art shaped by the previous colonial power France and the associated university curricula. An emancipation effort of Moroccan modernity that still radiates today.

And so there are numerous artists’ collectives in the exhibition, who together created a new understanding of art. By the time the documenta is over, Ruangrupa may have changed our idea of ​​what constitutes the essence of art.

Group dynamics – collectives of modernity, until June 12th, Lenbach from Munich, Luisenstr. 33