Adam Szymczyk – Polish Curator

As the artistic director of Documenta 14, Adam Szymczyk is one to watch in 2017. His teams are busy working in two cities, in Kassel and Athens, to produce the Documenta. Szymczyk has temporarily taken over the Athens-bases journal South as a State of Mind and has called for the critical inquiry to be driven by the social, political, and ecological urgency of this historical moment.

He is using places, geography, and existing structures to tell the story, rather than replacing them with something new. Szymczyk views Kassel and Athens as two different locations that show the current polarized and extreme states of Europe. He invites artists to create new works of art, and he seeks to help others around him to work together. In 2016, Szymczyk was named one of the year’s most influential people in the contemporary art world by ArtReview magazine.

The masculine name Adam is taken from the Hebrew word for “man”. It could also be derived from the Hebrew name Adam that means “to be red,” which refers to the ruddy color the human skin can get. While others believe that it could be from Akkadian word adamu that means “to make”. In Arabic, the name means “made from the mud, earth, or clay”.

According to the Old Testament, Adam was created by God from the earth. The name has been used as an English Christian name since the Middle Ages and gained popularity after the Protestant Reformation. There are many famous people that bear the name, from Adam Smith the Scottish Economist to Adam of Melrose the Bishop of Caithness.