FLASH ART October 2001

 

Detroit

Documenta USA

 

In a press release that ranks as the most entertaining ever received by the Flash Art news office – part spirited manifesto and part PT Barnum-esque ballyhoo – Jef Bourgeau's Museum of New Art in Detroit (MONA) announced that it would unleash “Documenta USA” September 15 – October 27, boasting the participation of over 2,000 artists in “the largest art exposition in the world.” 

 

As part of the museum’s mission, MONA proposes “to void all previous museums and to prove them invalid.”  “Documenta USA” creates an archive of all the materials used to decide an exhibition – slides, postcards, reviews, catalogues – in an attempt to eliminate the curator as the middle-man and deliver art to the public straight-with-no-chaser. 

 

The exhibition reads like a wish list promising deliverance from the museum as mausoleum, including an exhibition that completely renews itself every 100 minutes; a gallery filled with art that visitors can touch, with work by Christo, Vito Acconci and over 100 others; and a 48-hour open invitation to artists to hang one work on the museum wall until it is displaced by the work of another artist.