The area in the Neue Galerie where Martin's painting 'River', 1964, hung near Tanaka's geometric collages from the 50s and Mohamedi's linear drawings and diaries from the '70s was one of the more coherent sections of Documenta 12. One could argue that, given the particular similarities in approach, each of the works was reduced to the level of surface. On further reflection, however, the artistic practices became differentiated from one another in terms of the way each expressed interiority and displayed methods of inscription. In juxtaposing graphic and linguistic elements, Mohamedi's diaries dissolve personal records into a system of abstraction. This loss of indexicality stands in contrast to the rhythmic disintegration of Martin's grids and lines into near immateriality and to Tanaka's structural transformation of materials through age.
-Marta Kuzma