The portfolio “The Time after the Revolution” begins with documenta 15 but invites us on an imaginary journey in time and space following militant art and cinema, traces the transformation of the moving image from film to video, and takes us on an excursion between continents, spaces and sites of action over the last 50 years. It goes back to the 1960s and 70s liberation movements and the large festivals and exhibitions that took place throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and South America in those decades – a unique point in time characterized by close cooperation between freedom fighters, intellectuals, and artists, and ties of solidarity between different struggles in what was then called the Third World and now is called the Global South. The intensive participation of artists in the struggles left archives in its wake. Their returned presence in different variations in contemporary works of art and exhibits preserves the mythology of the liberation struggle, but at the same time subjects it to the modes of thinking and concepts of the political of the last decades. Like the documenta itself, the portfolio too contains collective projects alongside works by individual artists, works that are also comprised of a visual collage of moving images from different time periods. The projects shown here expand our thought about the ways that art positions itself in relation to political struggles, and the impact of that positioning on ways of representation and presentation from the 1970s to the present. The images that accompany the portfolio are taken from films and video works, installations in exhibiting spaces, and archives of liberation struggles and movements. This is an exhibit that displays exhibits, looks at representation and how it is presented, and examines the changing of the gaze and the political-aesthetic act.
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