The First Exhibition of the Twenty-First Century—Lumbung 1 (documenta fifteen), What Happened, and What It Might Mean Two Years On

It is obviously a little dramatic to claim Lumbung 1 (documenta fifteen) as the first exhibition of the twenty-first century. This milestone is drawn from the Western Christian calendar and as such it is completely arbitrary and culturally specific. Still, art history and other fields have a track record of using the turn of a century to signify a break with the past and the start of a new lineage.Footnote1 As a provocation then, I wish to suggest that Lumbung 1 in Kassel challenged a paradigm of contemporary art that was built on modernism. It pointed instead towards a different horizon, not only for the forms of art it presented but also for its institutional frameworks. In doing so, it sought to shift the conceptual and experiential basis of relations between artworks and the diversity of visitors that might see an exhibition.