The Jakarta-based collective ruangrupa will be the artistic directors of Documenta 15, which will begin on 18 June 2022. This appointment marks the first time that the quinquennial 100-day event will be led by an artist collective and the first time by an artistic director from Asia. Sabine Schorman, General Director of Documenta and the Fridericianum Museum, announced ruangrupa’s appointment at a press conference on 22 February 2019. The international finding committee that nominated ruangrupa comprised: Ute Meta Bauer, founding director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and curator of the 2015 Jakarta Biennial; Amar Kanwar, artist and documentary filmmaker, whose works have appeared in the last four editions of Documenta; Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern in London; Gabi Ngcobo, curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale; Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of The Showroom London; Philippe Pirotte; and Jochen Volz, director of Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.
At the press conference, ruangrupa members Farid Rakun and Ade Darmawan commented:
Our curatorial approach aims at a different community-oriented model of resource usage – economical, but also taking ideas, knowledge, programs and innovations into account. If Documenta was launched in 1955 to heal war wounds, why shouldn’t we focus Documenta 15 on today’s injuries, especially ones rooted in colonialism, capitalism, or patriarchal structures, and contrast them with partnership-based models that enable people to have a different view of the world.
ruangrupa define themselves as a contemporary art organisation, founded in 2000 by a group of six artists in Jakarta – Ade Darmawan, Hafiz, Ronny Agustinus, Oky Arfie Hutabarat, Lilia Nursita, Rithmi – and now counting more than ten memebers in total. As a nonprofit organisation and artist collective, whose artistic and curatorial practice is based around community engagement, ruangrupa works to “advance art ideas in urban context” through exhibitions, festivals, an art laboratory, workshops, researches, as well as book, magazine and online journal publications. ruangrupa in Bahasa Indonesian loosely translates as “space for art” or “a space form”, and since 2008 the collective runs an art space in South Jakarta, called RURU Gallery, providing an exhibition space for young artists, writers and curators.
Since 2003, the collective has been organising the annual OK. Video – Indonesia Media Arts Festival, and since 2004, the Jakarta 32°C, a biannual art event presenting the best visual works of Jakarta students. ruangrupa also runs the ArtLab, a programme of art projects that aims to conduct researches and creative collaborations on urban and media issues, and provides a space for collaboration for both individual artists and collectives of interdisciplinary fields from inside and outside Indonesia. In 2018, ruangrupa established GUDSKUL, an educational and networking project for creatives based on cooperative work. Other initiatives include RURU Radio and Karbon, an online journal that discusses public space issues and Indonesian urban art and culture viewed from various perspectives in critical, creative and imaginative ways. In 2016, ruangrupa curated the Sonsbeek public arts festival in Arnhem, titled “TransACTION” and as artists, they have participated in editions of the Gwangju Biennale (2002, 2018), the Istanbul Biennale (2005), the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2012), the Singapore Biennale (2011), the São Paulo Biennale (2014) and the Aichi Triennale (2016).