A Summer of Art?

2017 was supposed to be one of these special years: a summer of the arts, also coined as “Art-Mageddon 2017” in some European art magazines.¹ It was the year that aligned three major European art events—the Venice Biennale as well as Documenta in Kassel and Skulptur Projekte Münster, the latter two in Germany. Whereas Venice is on the agenda every second year for global art travelers and the elite of artists and curators in the field of contemporary arts, they have to wait five or ten years respectively to visit Documenta and Skulptur Projekte Münster. In the debates on contemporary arts, these events are regarded as indicators for the developments in the international art world. The rare concurrence of the three events invited comparisons concerning format and content, the rigor and coherence of the curatorial concept, the quality of the display and the selected art projects and—of particular interest...