The catalogue as exhibition space : the emblematic case of documenta X (1997)

This paper presents an analysis of the catalogue Politics Poetics and its relation to the documenta X exhibition, which was curated in 1997 by Catherine David. Conceived as a collage of artworks, photographs, and seminal Western philosophical and political texts produced after 1945, the catalogue challenges the rigid divisions between work, document, and commentary, as well as between exhibition display and memory, reflecting the multifaceted and polyphonic nature of the cultural event David conceived.