We are invited to respond to this statement: the next Documenta should be curated by an artist.

What a relief to be offered a proposition that I flatly disagree with. I know there are feelings of confusion and disarray about curating and curators, but we are not so confused that the solution to the Documenta problem is for Documenta to be curated by an artist. We need not think very far to see what the problems will be: the temptation to be self-serving, etc. So my answer to this proposition is a simple “No, thank you.”

But let's be constructive. What instead? First, what is the Documenta problem? In a very few words, Documenta-Documenta on the old model-has outlived itself. In relation to the influence it has, the weight it carries, the importance it has come to assume, it can no longer do what we have come to expect of it. For Documenta to justify its extraordinary prestige and unique position as the show that stands above all the others, it can't go on as it has.

The origin of the problem is that Documenta as it has been organized cannot deal with what the art world has become. The world of current art practice is too complex, too multifarious, too divided, too diverse, too dispersed, to be brought together under the authority of a single curator, no matter how many other curators the principle curator consults. That is the root of the Documenta problem. It continues to be a show that offers itself as shaped by a single vision, a single sensibility, as if this single sensibility could have an equal engagement with all the art in the show, an equal knowledge of it, an equal commitment to it. This may be possible in name, but if the show's scope becomes so broad, so inclusive, so diffuse, as to seem at times arbitrary, when we can imagine replacing one artist with another, or when the inclusion of an artist seems to be more a matter of habit or courtesy than anything else, then the model of a single curatorial vision, possible in name, is no longer possible in fact.

This analysis, though cursory in the extreme, suggests the solution. In 1996 Lars Nittve organized a show at the Louisiana called “NowHere.” He invited four curators from other countries and a team of two curators from the Louisiana each to organize his or her or their own show. The five separate shows, each with its own title, were presented as the larger show, “NowHere.”

The model that Lars Nittve invented for “NowHere” should be the model for the next Documenta, but with the number of curators multiplied. Each curator would exercise exclusive control over his or her own show. It could take whatever form the curator wanted. How many curators? Let’s say thirty. It could be more, but it shouldn't be less. Thirty is a quantity large enough to produce a vast variety in approaches, a vast variety in results.

What is to be gained if Documenta were not one big show but thirty smaller shows that added up to a big show?

The principal advantage is that this arrangement will make it possible to compare not just artists, but curators. Under the old model, you couldn't compare Documenta with itself because it was a unity. Instead, you could only compare the elements within it, which is to say, artists with artists. It has always been tempting to compare each new Documenta with earlier ones, but this exercise is pointless because the world from which each earlier Documenta was made no longer exists.

Documenta under a single curator offers us no alternative to itself. Instead there can only be assertions about what it could have been instead of what it is. The only alternatives are hypothetical: the curator should have included these artists, he or she should have omitted those. No Documenta has ever had to defend itself against other models, other approaches, because there weren’t any that could address it from a position of equal standing.

Because no alternative exists in fact, the authority of Documenta under the old model is oppressive. The alternatives, and they are always only hypothetical, exist only as responses after the fact.

A Documenta of many separate shows each organized by a different curator makes possible a multitude of responses to the same historical moment, a possibility that the regime of a single curator exactly forecloses. A single curator can’t disagree with himself or herself. The regime of a single curator by its nature explains away or reconciles or harmonizes the exceptions, the ruptures, the inconsistencies: we construct the field created by a single curator as a unity. Many curators, each with his or her own show, can do what a single show with a single curator cannot, represent the present complexity of art practices and curatorial practices, their divisions, their conflicts.

The point of a Documenta organized on this principle, a show of shows, is to produce variety, and variety is exactly what there will be. We will be able to compare not just artists with artists, but curators with curators. There will be variety in the range of the shows, their themes, their territories, their preoccupations, their premises, their theses, their ideologies, their theorizations. And there will be variety in their quality. There will be no avoiding this fact. Some shows will be better than others, not just because the artists are better, but because the curators are better, the premises of their shows more interesting, their ideas more provocative, the installations more telling.

A Documenta organized on this principle will go well beyond making the curating more visible, it will make curating, the issues in curating, a part of the show. Curating-what is at stake in its politics, its postulates-has become an issue, so the time has come to make it an explicit subject within an exhibition. What better place to do this than Documenta? The model of Documenta under a single curator is, I am convinced, no longer productive, and Documenta, the biggest show of them all, is big enough to consist of many shows. In fact there is no more suitable place for this new form of organization.

Yes, some person or some committee will have to curate the curators, but that is hardly an insurmountable obstacle. A large number of curators, let’s say 120, will be invited to submit proposals for shows that can be mounted within a certain number of square feet, and thirty curators will be chosen. Of course allowances will be made for work that needs to be out of doors. In the selection, variety is the important thing, variety in geographical origin, the many different kinds of identity, constituencies, generations, enthusiasms, methods, formations, politics, ideologies, and this variety will be easy enough to achieve.

The organizers could invite proposals not just from curators, but from people whose principle occupation is something else but who are nonetheless engaged with issues in current art practice, for example art historians and critics. I think of figures like Benjamin Buchloh and Yve-Alain Bois. A Documenta made up of small shows would give such people a chance to take part as curators, to the enrichment of the exhibition. Documenta could even invite a couple of artists to submit proposals. If they are brilliant shows, my skepticism will be proven misplaced. If they are not successful, well, it will be only a couple of shows out of thirty.

If the organizers had the courage, and the curators that weren’t chosen were agreeable to it, Documenta could publish in the catalogue the proposals that were not accepted. If documentation of the work in the rejected shows were available, the rejected shows could be mounted as virtual shows and made available on the web. Not just one Salon des Refusés, but 90.

If a Documenta of thirty shows will produce a vast and complicated field that will delight and confound its viewers with new demands on how to engage with work, it will be even more the case if these further shows, the shows that might have been, are included in what is offered for viewing and criticism and discussion.

A Documenta that is a show of smaller shows will be more manageable for viewers. As it is now, the territories that Documenta is divided into coincide for the most part with the buildings that house the art: the Fridericianum, the KulturBahnhof, etc. We know that the distribution of the work among these different buildings corresponds very roughly with a hierarchy. That is already enough of a problem, but the other problem is that there are only a few buildings. They divide an enormous show into only a few territories, and these are so large as to be unwieldy.

You go to the brewery with a certain dread, because it is a huge building filled with many artists. There is no way to navigate it, no way to measure your progress through it, except one artist at a time. A show of shows will divide the territory of the brewery into a series of more manageable units, something larger than the work of a single artist, something smaller than the entire building, just as this same principle will subdivide all of Documenta. And these different subdivisions will each have the power to signify. Each show will in theory be distinct from all the others. Each show will have, presumably, a specific purpose, a focus, an identity. Each show will be small enough for us to suppose that the curator has a real relation with all of the artists in the show, a deep knowledge of their work, convictions about the work, commitment to it.

In one afternoon, you could see five or six shows, one right next to the other, and compare each with the others. There is the work to think about, and there is the differences in the shows to think about. You will have seen not just a number of artists, but also a number of shows, entire shows, each with a distinct identity and sensibility. How different this would be from engaging with Documenta only by looking at one artist after another, a succession of names within a huge show that goes on and on, that causes you to wonder if you will have the time and the stamina to get through the whole thing.

In a Documenta of many small shows, you seek out this artist in that show. You seek out that artist in this show. There's a curator you like, but you don’t know the work she's showing, so you go take a look. There’s an artist you like, but shown by a curator unknown to you, and with artists you don’t know, so you go take a look. There’s a show that you heard has some great work in it but as a show it's a disappointment, so you go take a look to see how this is possible. Some shows make work look better than you thought was possible. There's a show with a brilliant catalogue essay but the show itself turns out to be a disappointment. You’ve seen the shows you heard are interesting. You decide to skip the shows you heard aren’t worth the trouble of visiting.

Could the same artist be in more than one show? Of course. Even similar work by the same artist will mean different things in different shows. That is the power of curating, the power of how work is grouped and installed. The greater the range we see in strategies of selection and installation, the greater the range in curatorial practices, the more this is all made visible, the more a part of the discussion, the better. This organization will articulate, make manifest, the process that is everywhere present in a show organized by a single curator but that the form of the show, an unbroken unity, tends to encourage us to forget. We will better understand that curating, for all of its claims to be final and authoritative, claims that are instantiated within the form of a show like Documenta even if they were to be explicitly repudiated-in fact perhaps more instantiated in Documenta than in any other show-can be tentative, provisional, and is in any case always a gesture of contestation.

More curators will of course cost more money, but what is gained will be worth it. Each curator gets the same budget, and each curator mounts his or her show with that budget. A curator invites the artists to be in his or her show, and how the money is divided among the artists is a matter for the curator to negotiate with the artists. If a curator can find more money from somewhere else, fine.

Yes, of course, the logistical problems are enormous. I would prefer to see each show presented within a single and limited space, so there will be a sense of a boundary around each show. That way, we know we are within a show, and we know when we leave that show and enter another. But there will be work that has to be out of doors or is site-specific. And there will be at least one curator who insists that the work in his or her show be dispersed around the city, or inserted piecemeal into the shows of other curators. All these problems can be solved.

The sense of a hierarchy within the exhibition spaces will linger on as a vestige of the old Documenta. Curators will vie to get the hemicycle in the Fridericianum. It will be of the highest importance to overturn all notions of a hierarchy of the spaces. There are ways to do this. Deal the spaces out by lot, and let the curators haggle with each other so that each can try to get the space that is appropriate to his or her needs. If you can’t get another curator to swap with you, you do the show that is appropriate to the space that the luck of the draw gives you.

Dividing the show up into smaller shows means that the writing about the work in the catalogue will be on a correspondingly modest scale. There could be an arbitrary limit for each curator's statement, for example two pages. A small show shouldn’t take much more to discuss. All right, three pages maximum, excluding footnotes and bibliography. The statements will have to be sharp, focused, polemical. The difference in the curatorial voices will be as distinct on the page as it is in the shows.

Each curator could be present in his or her show for a certain number of hours each day, ready to engage the public. There will be symposia several times a week, where the curators will defend to the public the artists they have included, the theoretical underpinnings of their shows, and so on. And just as important, the curators will debate in public with each other, defending to each other what they have done. So, under the authority of Documenta, there will be people speaking who disagree with each other. That will be productive.

Documenta’s position as the show that stands above all the others is reflected in what is at stake in choosing the curator. Being named to this post is seen in the profession as the ultimate honor. It tends to come well into your career, as if in recognition of a substantial record of professional achievement. It is a moment of prestige and visibility and influence that is likely never to be repeated. The pressures while preparing the show are enormous. You have more power than any curator in the entire world. Everyone wants to be your friend. And what you are after Documenta can fall short of the brief moment of glory you enjoyed on the international stage. Wherever you go afterwards, what clings to you is that you were once the curator of Documenta.

We like curators. Why would we want to subject someone to anything so unpleasant, to raise the curator to such a height, only to cast him or her down when the job is done? The model I am proposing takes much of the pressure off. Not one curator, but thirty. Not one person who is already senior enough, already seasoned enough, so as to represent little risk, and afterwards consigned to some strange space that whatever its specific identity is forever post-Documenta, but a large number of people, some very young, some not yet fully formed, some with provocative ideas that are guaranteed to offend or even to fail. It will give these curators a chance to take risks on an international stage. Documenta will become a place where careers for curators can begin.

Part of the Documenta problem is that Documenta is too big a deal. There is no other show like it. Documenta has too much power, too much authority. It functions as the supreme arbiter of the international art world. Reputations, of artists and the curator alike, hang in the balance. Documenta should willingly lay down this authority in the way it is curated. What I propose here is one way for Documenta to do this. Documenta’s stature as an institution will continue undiminished, while the multiplicity of the shows presented under its name will refresh and reinvigorate Documenta as an exhibition.