Future documenta institute to be endowed with additional professorships - "More than art history".

"The great visitor interest in documenta 14 has shown the unbroken enthusiasm for contemporary art. In order to maintain this in the years between the exhibitions, we want to further consolidate the idea of documenta and the associated work on the questions it raises in Kassel. With these additional positions, the interdisciplinary research at the planned institute can be effectively advanced. In addition, the treasures of past documenta exhibitions can be brought back to the light of day,"  says Hesse's Minister for Science and the Arts, Boris Rhein. The state of Hesse is funding the professorships with 180,000 euros in a start-up phase in 2018 and 360,000 euros from 2019.

The president of the University of Kassel, Prof. Dr. Reiner Finkeldey, thanks the state of Hesse for its support and explains: "The documenta institute is associated with the prospect of our university developing into a significant place for research on contemporary art. I have made great efforts to secure this reinforcement because it underscores the fact that, from a research point of view, documenta represents more than just an art-science topic. Contemporary art is of course its core, but it has an impact on culture, history, architecture, society, even economic and international contexts. The additional professorships now mean an enormous boost for the development of the documenta Institute."

With the documenta-Institut, the state of Hesse, the city of Kassel and the University of Kassel with its art academy, as well as documenta gGmbH, are planning an independent research institution. The federal budget committee has signaled financial support for the new building. The institute will be located in the immediate vicinity of the university - at Holländischer Platz - and will in future deal scientifically and interdisciplinarily with documenta, its significance and its charisma in the context of a global contemporary exhibition culture. The wealth of material in the documenta archive, under the direction of Dr. Birgit Jooss, will form the starting point for the planned research activities.

President Finkeldey commented: "We are in very constructive discussions with the state, with the city of Kassel, with documenta gGmbH and its documenta archive, and we are pleased to be able to increase our scientific contribution so substantially. The institute is taking shape beautifully."

The university plans to advertise the additional professorships quickly. In addition to their other activities in research and teaching, the future professors will strengthen the scientific contribution that the university has already pledged to the documenta Institute. This includes, above all, the so-called documenta professorship (held by Prof. Dr. Nora Sternfeld) at the art academy, which is part of the university. Already, moreover, distinguished personalities from the arts (Prof. Joel Baumann, rector of the art academy), cultural studies (Prof. Dr. Andreas Gardt, Germanist and president of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities), architecture (Prof. Philipp Oswalt, former director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation) and the social sciences (Prof. Dr. Heinz Bude, prizewinner of the German Sociological Association) are contributing their respective perspectives to the institute's concept.

Contact:

Beate Hentschel 
University of Kassel 
Communications, Press and Public Relations 
Tel.: +49 561 804-1961 
E-mail: presse@uni-kassel.de www.uni-kassel.de