Liza Weber

d¹ is a film-documentary script on the first documenta, an international exhibition of Art of the Twentieth Century held in Kassel, Germany, in 1955. Compiling filmed interviews with four witnesses, two academics and one stranger, the script is mediated by, and thus research into, memory. 

The script questions: How in 1955 did visitors to the first documenta remember modernist artists and their artworks? Hung or placed on plinths without captions or wall texts, modernism was exhibited without a narrative. d¹ tells the story of one artwork: Emy Roeder’s sculpture Die Schwangere (Pregnant Woman).

Tracing the provenance of Roeder’s sculpture, the script soon identifies (befittingly) two pregnant women: together their movements map the arc of Germany’s modernism, from national slander under the Nazi's 'Degenerate Art' campaign to national celebration at the first documenta. Which is not to say, commemoration. Acts to honour memories of Germany's modernism are still wanting. d¹ is but one act. 

Exhibited alongside the script is a d¹ trailer, demonstrating (if nothing else) the film-documentary aesthetic.