Q: Is modernity our antiquity? A: Like dah, Roger.

Pictured: recent restoration work at the Bauhaus, Dessau. Photo: Sophie Vogt.

In the first of their three leitmotifs, Documenta 12's co-directors Roger Buergel and Ruth Noack pose the question: Is modernity our antiquity? In a weighty TASCHEN mag just out titled Modernity? they ask magazine editors from around the world to pursue this question as it relates to their own cultural and historical circumstance.

To quote from the editorial to the first issue of the magazine: Which Modernity and whose Antiquity?, "The history of modernity can be told in many different ways. The authors featured in this issue therefore write about specific, local modernities, trace their dislocated or interrupted developments, explore counter- or parallel models of modernity in which undeveloped or unintended transitions and unexpected connections between spaces and practices come to light."

As an institution devoted to furthering our understanding of one of great pioneers of the early modernist movement -- Johann Dieter Wassmann -- we will be pursuing this question ourselves in coming weeks here on the MuseumZeitraum blog, while looking at the relevance of such questions in the context of our current post-colonial era.

Readers comments are willkomen!