In total about Shimchik Adam: file on the art director of Documenta

Shimchik Adam, the Polish curator and the art director of Documenta 14, preceded an exhibition of this year the radical manifesto: "We want to call into question a chauvinistic, white and man's, nationalist way of life and thoughts which continues to dominate in a world order and to form it".

the Inequality in art has centuries-old history, but in the last decade all become more noticeable signs of that the ratio of forces starts changing. Documenta is long ago in vanguard of movement for expansion of an art canon, but this general trend, apparently, reached apogee just now, with an exhibition Shimchik Adam when in April for the first time for the 60-year history Documenta opened at first in gorod Afiny, on the second exhibition platform, and only two months later began work at home in Kassel.

this year at an exhibition unprecedentedly large number of artists (about 40%), a great number of unnoticed artists of the senior generation and already late masters is presented to

, and also it is a lot of works of representatives of indigenous people of different continents. The decision to carry out part of an exhibition in gorod Afiny marks not only derogation from the traditional Documenta model, but also a step aside from the habitual art centers on the world map.

Foksal

Shimchik Adam was born

in 1970 in Piotrkow Trybunalski in Central Poland, studied history of arts at the Warsaw university. In the 1990th started working in Foksal Gallery — the noncommercial gallery founded in 1966 by group of critics into which Edward Krasinsky and Stazhevsky Henryk entered. At the heart of its activity the principles of a protest against institutional hierarchy of gallery system lay. The independent curator and the former director of the Warsaw National gallery of arts "Zakhenta" Rottenberg Anda speaks: "Everything that Shimchik Adam does now at such large exhibitions as Documenta, is anyway based on the tradition which has developed in Foksal Gallery in the late sixties — the 1970th".

B 1997 Shimchik Adam, the director of gallery Borovsky Veslav, curators Andrzej Pzhivara and Mytkovskaya Ioanna founded the Foksal Gallery Foundation fund which has become in 2001st independent organization. Foksal Gallery Foundation played an important role in destiny of the well-known Polish artists, including Pavel Altkhamer, Vilhelm Sasnal, Zhmievsky Arthur and Sosnovskaya Monica. By words Rottenberg Anda, Shimchik Adam always "tried to find something new, something unevident; the mainstream was already described and defined so it represented for it where smaller interest".

Desire Shimchik Adam to be engaged in

in debatable subjects found reflection in organized by it in 2000 in the museum "Zakhenta" to Pyotr Uklansky's exhibition at which photos of the actors playing characters nazis were submitted. The popular Polish actor revolted with an exposition Olbrykhsky Daniel chopped up then a saber some photos. It caused a big public response, and the exhibition was closed. But, as Rottenberg Anda speaks, heading at that time the museum, "with each scandal popularity" comes, and both of them — both Uklansky, and Shimchik Adam — became quite famous figures.

Shimchik Adam was 33 when in 2003rd it became the director of Kunsthalle in Basel — the exhibition space of the average sizes located — thanks to Art Basel and numerous Swiss collectors living in the city — in the center of the international art scene. The commission which has approved its candidate looked for someone "non-standard" who could inhale new life in a 130-year institution, Peter Handschin, the former president of art society of Basel of Basler Kunstverein which manages Kunsthalle work remembers.

Handshin admits that the first some years were difficult. Shimchik Adam masterfully used Polish and English, and here with German it was necessary to him not easy. "It criticized for unsociability, forgetting that he speaks the third language for itself(himself)". But, when in 2013 Shimchik Adam submitted the project of the following Documenta, it, according to being present, did it already completely in German and was unanimously chosen on a post of her art director. "He very bright and perspective" — emphasizes Handshin.

Art freedom

Shimchik Adam is able to work as

with artists. "All artists exposed with it with whom I happened to communicate, told that it literally inspires that communication with it — as communication with the colleague artist. I always said to it that it the most creative of all acquaintances me curators, it was not pleasant to it" — Handshin notes. The Berlin artist Knorr Daniel, for the first time working with Shimchik Adam on the Berlin biennial in 2008 and whose works were included in Documenta 14, confirms his words: "I like to risk in search of new ideas as it is done by Shimchik Adam. He likes to look for new methods of work. I would like that such curator always was near, he is my friend, and at us there are so much general ideas and thoughts which we constantly develop". The artist agrees with it Bagramyan Nairi which was exposed at Shimchik Adam at Kunsthalle and also participates in present Documenta: "Already in the previous projects over which we worked together, the impression was made that we speak one language. It created space in which I could think freely and come to something new".

In a decade in the museum Shimchik Adam showed that is able to open talents. Dang Wo, for example, was still almost unknown when his exhibition went to Kunsthalle of Basel. "He offered young artists a platform not to make them well-known but because believed that their art worthy display, was convinced of its quality" — Handshin speaks. Besides, it presented to general public and artists of the senior generation, such as, for example, Li Lozano's late American kontseptualistka. "Shimchik Adam really knew no limit. To it it is unimportant who you are and from where. It is open for all new and is free from prejudices".

Classical ethics

In spite of the fact that Shimchik Adam lived

in Basel more than a decade, the fair Art Basel, most likely, did not manage to soften its relation to the art market. In the Documenta catalog he writes that creativity of artists needs "to be rethought out of communication with its function of currency in the modern art market" — this idea found the reflection in the list of participants of an exhibition, many of which any of large world galleries does not represent. By words Rottenberg Anda, for successful resistance to "the powerful pressure" from galleries and the market the director of a biennial has to be "very strong personality". Shimchik "is violently independent", she speaks. "Today division into the commercial and noncommercial is not so accurate, but he still adheres to classical ethics".

Shimchik Adam included

In the Athenian part of an exhibition 13 recent Greek artists, and nevertheless it scarified for that to it was not succeeded to plunge into the local art environment deeply. In response to criticism the curator declared to the German journalists that the exhibition "did not reflect at all for representation of the Athenian scene … it it would be too narrow for Documenta". But even critics pay it tribute that he transferred the main platform of Documenta from kasselsky Frideritsianum to the National Museum of Modern Art experiencing financial difficulties in gorod Afiny which became the main space of the Greek part of an exhibition. It also praise for the help to the budgetary platforms of gorod Afiny, many of which in crisis go through difficult times. The considerable part of investments made in them was collected by Documenta: according to our sources, €18,5 million ($20,7 million) from means of the German taxpayers, , practically were without fail allocated for kasselsky part of an exhibition. Opening of Documenta in gorod Afiny — bold political gesture Shimchik Adam. Seeking to create a new ratio of forces in the art world, it redistributed financial and institutional power of Documenta, having redirected it from the richest country EU to one of the poorest.