We are excited to announce the UK premiere of exergue – on documenta 14, screening as a prologue to Open City Documentary Festival 2025.

exergue – on documenta
Dimitris Athiridis | 2024 | Greece | 848’ | Digital | English, German spoken, English subtitles 

Structured in 14 episodes (screening over three consecutive days), exergue – on documenta 14 offers a look behind the scenes of the institutional contemporary art world.  The film follows artistic director Adam Szymczyk and his curatorial team over two years as they prepare documenta 14. Titled “Learning from Athens”, the 2017 edition of the world’s most prominent art exhibition was held for the first time both in its home of Kassel in Germany and Athens in Greece, a gesture that referenced Germany’s bail-out of Greece, which ultimately profited the German government. documenta 14 went notoriously over budget, prompting a media scandal and financial investigation that overshadowed the artistic merits of the exhibition. Working in the observational tradition, and with unprecedented access, Athiridis’s epic project mirrors the scale and ambition of Documenta 14, as well as its radical commitment to the transparency of the process, sharing the exhibition “among its visitors and artists, readers and writers, as well as all those whose work made it happen”.  

“The film’s mostly observational form means that Athiridis’s main intent is to document rather than cast explicit judgment; each viewer will come to their own conclusion as to how to assess Szymczyk and his decision to bring a German mega-exhibition to Greece just a few years after the latter’s sovereign debt crisis and subsequent political turmoil. One thing, however, is certain: through the gruelling, multiyear process of making this happen, Szymczyk and his team show a sincere belief in art’s capacity to confront the darkest aspects of the past and present. They manifest a tenacious commitment to public transparency […] making a market-unfriendly exhibition with themes of colonialism, indigeneity, war, and migration at its heart. Athiridis’s record shows how critique and creativity can come from within the belly of the beast, without ever letting its viewer forget that there is a price to pay along the way.” (Erika Balsom, Film Comment) 

Presented in collaboration with Art Monthly.
 

The screening of exergue – on documenta (chapters 1-4) on Friday 18 April will be followed by a conversation between Adam Szymczyk, artistic director of documenta 14 and Chris McCormack, Associate Editor of Art Monthly. 

Programme Schedule

Friday 18 April
15:00 – Introduction
15:10 – 17:00 – Chapters 1-2
17:00 – 17:15 – Intermission (15 mins)
17:15 – 19:30 – Chapters 3-4

19:30 – 20:30 – Adam Szymczyk in conversation*
*Please note this is a separate ticketed event

Saturday 19 April
12:00 – 14:45 – Chapters 5-7
14:45 – 15:15 – Intermission (30 mins)
15:15 – 18:15 – Chapters 8-10

Sunday 20 April
12:00 – 14:15 – Chapters 11-12
14:15 – 14:30 – Intermission (15 mins)
14:30 – 17:00 – Chapters 13-14