Madu Udeh turned on the oven, then the stove, then the music. Beyonce’s “Renaissance” played as heat filled the apartment’s small kitchen — a dance to prepare a skillet of nachos.
“Can you fry?” they asked me as though we hadn’t just met 15 minutes prior.
I’d never been asked to help an interviewee cook dinner, but I obliged and cut a stack of tortillas in four.
At the time, I didn’t know this simple interaction — cooking and talking — was a revolutionary experience that Udeh spent weeks embracing in “Good Kitchen” at Documenta, an experimental art exhibition in Kassel, Germany that takes place every five years. It had only been a week since Udeh had returned to the states.
The 22-year-old USC film major, who prefers to be called “Magic,” fell into visiting Documenta after a professor offered to pay for a ticket to the exhibition. It was Magic’s first time learning about the longstanding event that namely contemporary artists, critics and art historians interact with.
Documenta started in 1955 as a way to bring Germany out of the cultural darkness of Nazism by showcasing art and artists from around the world. The 15th installment, which ended its 100-day run in September, fell two years behind because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Magic compared the Documenta experience to fermenting bread, where dough — in this case artists and their work — could mold and grow in a confined space and time. But as an outsider and one of only two Americans Magic knew of at the event, they found their first few weeks at Documenta more overwhelming than accommodating.
“There was this whole town just filled with exhibits,” they said. “It was too much art.”
Magic shared their indifference to art such as “Borrowed Faces,” a graphic photo novel of stories from the Cold War by the Berlin collective Fehras Publishing Practices, that was hung in galleries. But visual art such as paintings and photography were only a small sector of the work produced by the hundreds of international artists invited to participate at Documenta.
Magic’s breakthrough finally happened when they discovered the experimental exhibit “ook_,” a collective and creative space organized by Netherlands artist Reinaart Vanhoe.
According to Vanhoe, “ook_” refers to a vision of free space inhabited by neighbors and friends. It’s also a way to collaborate with other people. Artists called it “Good Kitchen,” Magic said, a colloquial name for the space where people cooked for each other, listened to music and held conversations, much like what Magic and I were doing in L.A.
“The whole idea that you can create a space for people to chill, and curating that space, is an art form,” Magic said. “It was really radical to me.”
Magic knew they’d bring this experience back to California immediately after cooking their first “Good Kitchen” meal — a savory coconut curry and potato dish. It was the first time they thought of art as something more than what lives on walls or movie screens, but also what lives in people, experiences and communities — an idea represented by Documenta 15′s theme of “Lumbung,” the Indonesian word for a communal rice barn.
Not every Documenta guest, however, experienced the sort of community encounter Magic described. This year’s exhibition — under the artistic direction of the Indonesian art collective ruangrupa — was criticized for alleged displays of antisemitism. Early visitors encountered a 60-foot painted banner, an art piece titled “People’s Justice.” One of the figures on the banner had a soldier’s body with a pig’s face, wearing the Star of David on a neckerchief and a helmet bearing the word “Mossad,” the name of Israel’s security service. A later incident called attention to the event’s over-censorship of Palestinian films. All the while, Israli artists lacked visual representation at Documenta 15, which sent Jewish organizations into an uproar.
Barely a month into the exhibition, Documenta’s director general Sabine Schormann resigned amid the scandal. Ruangrupa responded to the allegations of the acts of antisemitism being intentional with an open letter addressing the controversy.
Despite knowing of the allegations, Magic said artists and guests at Documenta rarely talked about the controversy. The dispute appeared to impact mainly Documenta leaders more than day-to-day visitors and exhibits.
After dinner, Magic and I continued our conversation over glasses of wine in their driveway — pinot grigio out of mason jars, a very twenty-something experience while reflecting on their five weeks spent in Kassel.
“Even though people from here didn’t go all the way to Germany to experience the idea of collective living, doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t exist here,” said Magic, dragging on the intention like they did their cigarette.
This may be the only Documenta experience Magic said they’ll have, but it’s inspired them to look for spaces like “Good Kitchen” to share with L.A. Artist or not, Magic believes every person can benefit by sharing time, space and conversation with their community; even in the smallest ways, such as cooking dinner with a new friend.
“‘Lumbung’ is an Indonesian word,” Magic said. “Collective living is not.”