Carlos Perez Marin

After the first visit to Kassel, I had more information to start working on a proposal for the scenography but it wasn’t an individual task since we were discussing and developing the curatorial proposal all together. I shared in “real time” my thoughts in our internal (zoom) meetings and at the same time I tried to find the correct placement for each artwork proposed by my friends, which was not easy at all in a building which last function had been as a nightclub, with reduced dimensions (especially with regard to heights) and with the materiality of its walls and vaults. As we progressed, we shared our ideas and questions with the documenta team that was helping us. Most of the conversations were about technical questions and the possibilities of doing some previous work; the windows opening, the electric board box, the ventilation system, the radiators, the water pipes… I only realised after the opening a remark Laila made related to the curation, they never discussed the artistic proposal from LE 18, not even Lara Khaldi from the documenta artistic team with whom we had meetings every two weeks, giving us a lot of freedom to show whatever we wanted (during the event in August I read ruangrupa did not want to exercise the role curators have, which is to decide what artist works were going to be exhibited). 

Once I finished the section plans, (with the measures I took in Kassel because production team only provided me a ground floor plan), I could draw all the artworks selected in a very first list in order to understand the real space we had but as I feared when I saw the list, there were too many. Once they saw the plans they knew we needed more space if they wanted to show the whole list, proposing the garage and the small piece where Bob had his motorbikes, as exhibition spaces. I thought it was not a good idea, the garage was good for public events not for exhibitions because it raised many problems related to security, visitors control, preservation of artworks… I simply expressed my opinion, but I did not want to be an obstacle and sometimes I limited myself to saying where the works could be located, or proposing another place in the venue, at least those that could be installed in the courtyard. 

Studying the works and artists they were thinking I saw that not all the members of the team were aware of the importance of documenta, as if it was an invitation of an European association, so I decided to sent to Laila and Francisca a link where they could see who had participated in documenta because you could tell the history of the contemporary art world just telling the history of its participants. Laila answered me, “Do you want to scare us?” 

I just wanted to tell Laila and Francesca, with whom I had a stronger relationship, that some decisions were a little bit weird for me, like dividing the exhibition equally between 4 programs, Dabaphoto, Qanat, Awal, Vernacular, instead of thinking about telling a story of LE 18. I considered the distribution of works as a way to avoid problems between the persons running those programs and I thought that at a moment Laila, as founder, was going to make her opinion prevail, however she stayed neutral. In those days, I believed she was wrong but some months later, during the event I could better understand, and learn, from the concept behind ruanrugrupa’s proposition. From the lumbung perspective I understood her position, she was acting as a member collective not as a founder of a culture centre with people working or collaborating with her. Maybe I had that feeling because we used to work in another way in Tighmert where each of us does what he knows to do but we do not try to impose, not even to give our opinion on matters someone else is in charge, we can economise time in meetings but there is the risk some people cannot find themselves completely integrated in the collective.  

Despite the learning process I was following, there was a concern I had to share with Laila and Francesca: the young artists. I have already seen how the participation in important exhibitions in Europe has been very negative for some young Moroccan artists. These events are dangerous because they can believe they have achieved something important in their careers, whereas they have only just begun, becoming less and less open to criticism or to follow experimental paths because now they have a “prestige” to keep. Moreover, I considered some of them could be encouraged by gallerists, curators and friends to take advantage of their participation naming themselves as documenta 15 artists without specifying that in fact they were invited by LE 18 not by documenta curators. In any case, my concern was not about the attitude these artists could have after the event, towards their new “status”, but about the negative implications that could “ruin” them. 

Throughout the creative process I was very careful with all the technical information I was sending to the production team, not that I was overwhelmed by working on documenta but because I did not want to leave the friends who had trusted me in a bad place, hence I told myself I should give them as much information as possible to facilitate the exhibition setup, which involved drawing not just one or two but 13 sections of the building with the details of the scenography. 

In our meetings we did not talk just about the exhibition, I could attend some discussions about the public program my friends were preparing. I did not have all the information related to budget conditions established by documenta in the invitation, but it seemed to me they wanted to bring too many people. At that moment, at the end of February, nobody outside of the team really knew who was going to be part of the exhibition and the public program, until the budget was closed. 

Credits texts, photos and drawings: Carlos Pérez Marín