documenta is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time. It was an attempt to bring Germany up to speed with modern art, both banishing and repressing the cultural darkness of Nazism. This first documenta featured many artists who are generally considered to have had a significant influence on modern art. The more recent documentas feature art from all continents; nonetheless most of it is site-specific.
David Goldblatt HonFRPS was a South African photographer noted for his portrayal of South Africa during the period of apartheid. After apartheid had ended he concentrated more on the country's landscapes. What differentiates Goldblatt's body of work from those of other anti-apartheid artists is that he photographed issues that went beyond the violent events of apartheid and reflected the conditions that led up to them. His forms of protest have a subtlety that traditional documentary photographs may lack: "[M]y dispassion was an attitude in which I tried to avoid easy judgments. . . . This resulted in a photography that appeared to be disengaged and apolitical, but which was in fact the opposite." He has numerous publications to his name.
Michael Ruetz works as artist and author. He is a German photographer.
Candida Höfer is a German photographer. She is a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students, Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly conceptual approach. From 1997 to 2000, she taught as professor at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe. Höfer is the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, as part of the Sony World Photography awards. She is based in Cologne.
Ralf Winkler, alias A. R. Penck, who also used the pseudonyms Mike Hammer, T. M., Mickey Spilane, Theodor Marx, "a. Y." or just "Y" was a German painter, printmaker, sculptor, and jazz drummer. A neo-expressionist, he became known for his visual style, reminiscent of the influence of primitive art.
Okwui Enwezor was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ArtReview list of the 100 most powerful people of the art world.
Michael Buthe was a German artist who lived and worked between Germany and Morocco. He exhibited widely throughout Europe during his life and is known for his eclectic and prolific oeuvre which encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation.
Christian von Alvensleben is a German photographer.
Manfred Baumann is an Austrian photographer. He has several different areas of work: nude photography, celebrity portraits, and landscapes.
Luigi Ghirri was an Italian artist and photographer who gained a far-reaching reputation as a pioneer and master of contemporary photography, with particular reference to its relationship between fiction and reality.
Manfred Schneckenburger was a German art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art. He was the curator of the documenta art exhibition twice, documenta 6 in 1977 and documenta 8 in 1987. He was the only person outside of the exhibition’s founder, Arnold Bode to have led documenta twice.
Harald Mante, German photographer, artist, and designer. Since 1960 Mante had a great influence on the German color photography. He was in second generation a Bauhaus student and transformed the ideas of the famous masters of the Bauhaus into photography. His text books on composition and color design are known worldwide.
Fotoform was an avant-garde photography group founded in 1949 by six young German photographers, Siegfried Lauterwasser, Peter Keetman, Wolfgang Reisewitz, Toni Schneiders, Otto Steinert and Ludwig Windstoßer.
Xiao Hui Wang is a Chinese artist, author and socialite who works mainly in photography, sculpture, design, and media art. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors; the city of Suzhou has named an art institution after her, a rare honor for a living artist. She has been profiled by the prestigious Hong Kong magazine Phoenix Weekly as one of the Top Fifty Most Influential Chinese Worldwide. She has been a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University since 2003, where she runs the Xiao Hui Wang Art Center. She divides her time between China and Germany.
Josef H. Neumann is a German Art Photographer, media designer and art historian. He invented the chemogram, an experimental artform involving manipulating chemicals in film photography.
Evelyn Richter was a German art photographer known primarily for social documentary photography work in East Germany. She is notable for her black & white photography in which she documented working-class life, and which often showed influences of Dadaism and futurism. Her photography is focused on people in everyday life, including children, workers, artists and musicians.
Mel Ramsden is a British conceptual artist and member of the Art & Language artist group.
Michael Baldwin is a British conceptual artist, author and founding member of the Art & Language artist group.
Floris Michael Neusüss was a German photographer.
Abisag Tüllmann was a German photographer.
