| Summary: | This dissertation figures the forthcoming edition of Documenta as a primary, though not
exclusive, vector of analysis in ongoing debates on the political economy of the art field and
anticipates some of the implications and effects this edition will have on contemporary Curatorial
practices and the exhibition-specific economies and discourses they engender. How do procedural
interventions into the various processes of capital accumulation, from within Contemporary Art and
Exhibition Histories, interact with the lived political economy that dictate the material and
disciplinary conditions of those practices? The appointment of ruangrupa as Artistic Directors of
documenta fifteen (2022), and their subsequent implementation of a transnational share-economy
within it, is a significant departure from the standard legal-economic conditions and arrangements
of global practices of exhibition making. My positions, criticisms and considerations are anchored
by historical vignettes from previous editions of Documenta, practices and arguments associated
with Institutional Critique and current writing on the Curatorial in Southeast Asia. The paper
utilizes existing literature on ruangrupa’s and Documenta’s distinct histories, promotional media
and art journalism pertaining to documenta fifteen as well insights from conversations with relevant
parties and further select critical literature on contemporary arts’ discourses of labor and economy.
The selection of documenta fifteen as the central case study is not be understood singularly
but instead as an exemplary model projected to contain findings and developments applicable to
other calls to restructure the legal-economic arrangements of exhibitions from within the curatorial
discipline. Further, this paper reflects critically on the still-unfolding processes guiding and
establishing the terms through which contemporary art practices from Southeast Asia are being
presently incorporated into the mainstream Euro-American field of Art.
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