Richard Bell, “Pay the Rent (Australia)”, (2022), installed on the roof of the Fridericianum for documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany. Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane
Call for Articles | Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Special Issue: documenta fifteen: “the first exhibition of the twenty-first century,” 24.1, 2024
Full article submissions due: Friday 29 September, 2023
Editors: Amelia Winata, Cameron Hurst, Chelsea Hopper, Giles Fielke, Helen Hughes, Hilary Thurlow, and Paris Lettau
This special issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art (ANZJA) is edited by emerging art historians and critics Amelia Winata, Cameron Hurst, Chelsea Hopper, Giles Fielke, Helen Hughes, Hilary Thurlow, and Paris Lettau. They have worked together across numerous art historical editorial projects, including Index Journal, Discipline, and Memo Review. For ANZJA they focus on historicising documenta fifteen (2022).
ANZJA is calling for submissions of articles, dialogues, reflections, visual essays, and more to be a part of the special issue entitled documenta fifteen: “the first exhibition of the twenty-first century.”
Curated by Indonesian collective ruangrupa, documenta fifteen was seen by many as a celebration of community-oriented, socially engaged, non-mainstream art practices—many coming from the Global South and deeply engaged with decolonial struggles. However, the exhibition was also overshadowed by a tense, media-driven debate circling around antisemitism, German history, and collective trauma. This debate exploded when the Indonesian collective Taring Padi’s large banner, The People’s Justice (2002), was discovered to include antisemitic imagery (pertinent to ANZJA’s regional context, as the work was first exhibited in Adelaide in 2002).
As a result, discussions about documenta fifteen tend to vastly differ. From within, Finding Committee member Charles Esche declared it to be “the first exhibition of the twenty-first century,” claiming that the exhibition’s communal idea of the “lumbung” successfully addressed current crises of capitalism, climate change, colonialism, and patriarchy. In many ways, this theme also returned the project to Documenta’s origins in 1955, which was contemporary with the Bandung Conference in West Java and the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement of states looking beyond the Cold War binary. On the other hand, New York Times art critic Jason Farago argued that the exhibition was “the safest and most boring of this century.”
How, then, should documenta fifteen be remembered? What impact—measurable or perceived—has documenta fifteen had on contemporary discourse and curatorial practice?
For this issue of ANZJA, we are calling for papers that respond to these questions as well as consider broader themes, such as cultural memory, collectivism, cultural imperialism, colonialism, incommensurability, art administration and bureaucratic failures in the political economies of global art networks. We also encourage papers engaging with artistic collaboration and new curatorial frameworks, particularly within the context of the “Global South,” along with papers that challenge the persistent myths that centre Europe as the supreme location for modern and contemporary art, something which documenta fifteen actively sought to displace.
Potential contributors are welcome to contact the guest editors to discuss the suitability of their pieces: journal@aaanz.info
ANZJA publishes research articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words (including endnotes), which will be peer-reviewed*. We encourage both traditional and experimental approaches to peer-reviewed research articles, including essays, dialogues and embodied writing. We also publish shorter texts (2000 to 3000 words long) of opinions and reflections as well as reviews of books, exhibitions, and conferences (which are not peer reviewed). We also encourage visual essays. We are keen to provide a platform for writers who have historically been excluded from scholarly publishing including those who identify as First Nations and/or early career scholars, curators, and artists. The ANZJA and guest editors will work with such contributors to offer support during the peer-review process. If you have any questions, please contact us via the email below.
*Peer-reviewed articles: ANZJA adopts the double blind peer-review method where submissions are sent without author name/s to the reviewers, who also maintain anonymity. We strive to ensure that research specialisation, knowledge sharing, collegiality and cultural safety are central to our peer-review process.
Journal Aims and Scope
Please submit all essays and other submissions (including visual essays, dialogues, and reflections) via the ScholarOne System, adhering to the Journal style guide. See the ANZJA submission guidelines for further details on style, peer-review process and so on. Submissions not conforming to the guidelines will not be considered.
ANZJA is published by Taylor & Francis and the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ). The journal is housed by UNSW Art & Design under the editorship of Dr Verónica Tello with the support of Professor Edward Scheer (Head of School) and an editorial committee comprising Professor Jennifer Biddle, Dr Diana Baker Smith, Dr Bianca Hester, Dr Astrid Lorange and José Da Silva. AAANZ is Australia and New Zealand’s professional body for art and design historians, arts writers, artists, students of art history and theory, and museum professionals. ANZJA is Australasia and Pacifica’s principal refereed art-history journal. The Journal is dedicated to the study of art history, art practice, theory and exhibitions.
For all queries regarding the submission process please contact ANZJA’s Managing Editor, Anastasia Murney, a.murney@unsw.edu.au
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