In the Labyrinth of the Contemporary Condition: The Labyrinthine as Curatorial Topos of Postwar Modern in the German Art World Between 1945 and 1968

Abstract

“In Kassel begann der Kunstsommer,” a newsreel film from 1959[1] announced, and immediately characterized the documenta II exhibition as a “labyrinth of modern art,” where “it is up to oneself to find a way through contemporary art.”[2] The combination of modernist complexity and a spectacular show—the newsreel depicted it as a social event accompanied by light jazz music, where a young crowd dip their feet in the basin of the Picasso sculpture Les Baigneurs (1956)—was the success formula of the most iconic exhibition in postwar Europe: documenta, founded in Kassel in 1955. The period newsreel is but one example of how the image of the labyrinth was frequently used to represent documenta, especially during its second installment in 1959.