Page 42 - The Documenta issue of World of Art magazine (2002)

DOcumenTA11 WORLD exhiBiTiOns

documenta11
olumuYiWa olamide osiFuYe, nigeriA
image from a photo-essay of Lagos, nigeria,
2002*
color photograph
courtesy of the artist
*work shown at Documenta11
documenta11
eija-liisa ahtila, finLAnd olumuyiwa olamide osifuye
TALO / The hOuse, 2002* * 1960 Lagos, nigeria. Lives in Lagos, nigeria
app. 14 minutes, 3-screen DVD installation, Olumuyiwa Olamide Osifuye is a photo-essayist and documentary photographer in
s-16 / DVD-R pAL 16:9, audio DD 5.1 Lagos, nigeria. in his work he seeks to record the harsh realities of the nigerian society
Written and directed by eija-Liisa Ahtila; long-tethered to the battering post of military dictatorship and widespread economic
production crystal eye Ltd hardships. Osifuye’s images eloquently suggest, without falling into visual clichés, a
courtesy Gasser & Grunert Gallery, newyork proud and resilient people, even if scarred by the failures of the postcolonial state. For
*work shown at Documenta11 Documenta11, Osifuye creates a photo-essay of Lagos, nigeria’s most enigmatic city.

and the kulturbahnhof, and other locations in the city, will host other exhibition projects. A staff of 120
installers started working in the buildings on march 4, 2002.On the occasion of Documenta11, the German
Federal ministry of Finance, hans eichel, issued a special postage stamp and a 10 euro commemorative coin
on may 2, 2002.
On April 30, 2002, Documenta11 announced the list of the 116 invited artists. As we celebrate the opening of
the fifth platform of Documenta11 on june 8, 2002, we look back almost four years on the span of activities,
research, public debates, around which the project was organized. Throughout the 100 days of the exhibition,
a program of artists’ presentations, concerts, performances,workshops, and a film program will further
augment the generous scale and exploratory character of the exhibition.

the documenta-exhibitions

it was Arnold Bode, a painter and academy professor from kassel, who in 1955 made the attempt to
reestablish Germany as a partner of discourse to the rest of the world, and to reconnect it with international
art by organizing a “presentation of the Art of the 20th century”.After founding the “society of the
Occidental Art of the xx century”,he managed, with the support of this society, to present classical modern
art in the still destroyed museum Fridericianum, the art which had been defamed as degenerated by the
national socialists, and to present it in such a way as it had never before been seen in Germany.

40 WORLD of ART