Documenta 15: Decolonizing Culture or Neoliberal Conciliation?

Elvira Vannini critiques documenta 15, directed by Indonesian collective ruangrupa, as a decolonial and agonistic constellation that shifts the Eurocentric axis toward the Global South. For the first time in nearly 70 years, with the exception of Okwui Enwezor, all previous directors were European. The exhibition operates as a horizontal, pedagogical platform with archives, workshops, and assemblies, rejecting neoliberal exhibition machines. However, Vannini notes the absence of a political genealogy of colonial domination in Southeast Asia, despite the historical parallel: in 1955, Arnold Bode founded documenta to heal war wounds, while the Bandung Conference addressed colonial wounds. The show addresses serious issues—African diaspora, social and environmental justice, gender and minority struggles—but lacks a critique of the war in Ukraine. Controversies include accusations of antisemitism against ruangrupa, racist vandalism against The Question of Funding, Islamophobia complaints, and the removal of Taring Padi's agit-prop banner. Vannini argues that decolonizing narratives within the museum space risks neutralizing culture and removing privilege and power, and that the conciliatory vision of care and togetherness surrenders to global capital, silencing conflict and blocking emancipation.