Born in the shepherd's stable?

The last article in the series "Documenta Debrief" (TEXTE ZUR KUNST) by Nanne Buurman on curatorial governmentality at "documenta fifteen" is online.

In the extensive exhibition context of "documenta fifteen" it appeared again and again, the figure of the shepherd. In the concluding contribution to the series "Documenta Debrief" (TEXTE ZUR KUNST), art and cultural studies scholar Nanne Buurman explores this and, with Michel Foucault's concept of pastoral power, takes a look at the ambivalences of curatorial governmentality in the context of this year's edition. In her reflection on the rhetoric of collective care, the author questions the curators' postulated offer of a wholesome gathering. Who looked after whom and offered protection from what in the Kassel Collective Summer? Nanne Buurman critically explores the power structures between shepherds and flocks. At the same time, her reflections offer the opportunity to examine one's own thinking, which is shaped by mechanisms of oppression.

As a scholar of art and culture, Nanne Buurman is concerned, among other things, with the social-reproductive dimensions of curatorial practice. As a research associate for documenta and exhibition studies at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, she has been involved in the establishment of the documenta Institute and the Transdisciplinary Research Center for Exhibition Studies - TRACES since 2018 and co-directed a research group on Nazi continuities at documenta from 2020 to 2022. She is co-editor of the volumes documenta. Curating the History of the Present (2017), Situating Global Art (2018), Networks of Care. Politics of (Er)keeping and (Ent)caring (2022) and co-founder of the web platform documenta studien.

You can read Nanne Buurman's contribution here:www.textezurkunst.de