Talk:Documenta 14

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Deceased artists or defunct groups[edit]

In the Documenta 14 listing of artists, Carole Finer and Stefan Szczelkun who performed live in Documenta 14 in Athens, are listed under the collective name of ‘Scratch Orchestra’ within the section of ‘dead artists’. So we were denied the personal kudos of appearing as a D14 artist but there is more to it than that. The representation of large open collectives in art history and in the formation of the art canon is at issue here. Partly it is an objective matter of too much detail. We do not list all the members of an orchestra just the conductor and perhaps the principle players. But with something like the Scratch Orchestra, which denied hierarchic structure, even though it had a strong leader, it is crucial to achieving an accurate record or historical representation. (see John Tilbury's biography of Cornelius Cardew 'A Life Unfinished' 2008 for detail validation of these points) Also the view presented of a large collective depends on who the selected representatives are. Carole and I were both primarily visual artists so we did present the Scratch Orchestra from a (roughly) visual performance art viewpoint. This came out in the workshops and performance we led, which are not yet reviewed and were not recorded on video. Although the D14 photographer did take a set of photographs. Is it possible to adjust the historical record on the article page? Is it possible to challenge the ontology of Documenta 14 from a page on Wikipedia? Szczels (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]