At the center of that same room, Sheela Gowda’s Collateral blankets a curved chamber with incense material that has been molded into organic shapes, spread upon low metal screens, and scorched to ash. The fragile remains, scarred with smoke marks, evoke the wreckage of a vanished civilization unearthed by archaeologists and arranged for study.

In the next room, a recent video interview with Nedko Solakov narrates his controversial 1989-90 work Top Secret, a card catalog with mixed-media entries that track his alleged collaboration with the Bulgarian secret police. Nearly 20 years later, Solakov’s self-disclosure is still mesmerizing, a standout among a significant number of works here created in the former Soviet Bloc (which may be an attempt to make up for neglect of Eastern European artists in earlier editions of documenta).

A companion piece by Solakov commissioned for this show, Fears is a series of small ink drawings that reveal the lingering traces of intimidation and suppression. Yet one caption confides, “During socialism (when I was young), I had less fears than now (when I am older) living in a democracy.” If some of the sketches are confessional, others universalize fears, personifying them and their victims as natural phenomena: black holes, rainbows, snakes, snails, and jellyfish.

Solokov is not the only artist to be represented by works from both the past and present. Abstract sculptures by Lili Dujourie, John McCracken, Charlotte Posenenske, and Jorge Oteiza are scattered among multiple venues.

Another recurrent presence is the drawings and paintings of Kerry James Marshall. While the artist’s sharp take on the inner-city African-American experience has a good deal of bite on first viewing, the fact that it appears in just about every exhibition space dulls its effect. On the other hand, the repetition of crude paintings by Juan Davila, several of them garish caricatures of pornographic violence, does less of a disservice to the artist than it does to the viewer.

As I proceeded from gallery to gallery and saw so much work by the same artists, I couldn’t help but think of the underexposed artists whose more original and thoughtful works could have taken their place. I was not alone in this sentiment. “You see fewer artists than before, and some artists in different places, and also very often old pieces of artists,” observed documenta veteran Odette Rikkers, a 65-year-old collector from Liege, Belgium. “Usually at documenta you see new art.”