Letters from Documenta

This 13th version of the mighty documenta—this year it's dOCUMENTA (13)—held every five years in the relatively small township of Kassel, Germany, begins with a gentle but pronounced wind. As you enter the Fridericianum, historically the exhibition's main venue, this breeze envelops you, pushing you in some directions and pulling you in others. You would expect to encounter such a wind not when you enter a building but instead when you leave one, which makes for a conflation of inside and outside, museum and world. This particular breeze is rather startling, but often seems natural.

I'm guessing that many visitors won't initially register British artist Ryan Gander's invisible artwork, I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorize (The Invisible Pull) (2012), as an artwork at all, which would probably be just fine for the artist. Sometimes Gander's wind, created using customized industrial fans, is obvious; at other times it's hardly noticeable. It's in flux. The wind is restless as it courses throughout the museum's ground floor, and it is the perfect introductory work to an exhibition that is also wonderfully explorative and full of discoveries.
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