In Documenta 12, which closed recently after seeing a record number of 754,301 visitors (and 15,537 journalists on top of that, of which I was one), the dark rooms are what you remember.

The art objects were spotlit, but the rooms themselves were left to their own devices, some animated by gaudy pink and orange paint, others left dark. It was a theatrical device, really, and irritating in person. Oddly, it grows charmed in memory.

One of the continuously populated dim rooms was the one, in the Neue Galerie, that held dozens of Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov’s drawings, all titled Fears (2007). It looked like this:

In one of the drawings of two men dancing, the text reads, “Two people are dancing, they feel especially happy because they have left all their daily fears aside in order to feel more free and relaxed. They will pick up the fears again later.”

The graphic quality of these drawings is what you remember. They are black and white, and from afar can look like abstractions or Bolshevik graphics. In another room is Solakov’s archive of his collaboration with the Bulgarian secret police, about which he is ashamed, first seen in 1990.

In Fears, the heaviness and lightness of his work are in total balance. (It’s a balance that gets out of whack in his wall essay/diagram about Soviet arms production in the main show at the Venice Biennale.)

Here are some more of the conflicting and conflicted little creatures.

Text: A fearless adventurer is on his way to climb up his last mountain. After that he will only stay home, reading newspapers, drinking tea and picking his nose. This is the daydreaming in his head right now. He is used to it. Actually, this really will be his last mountain. An avalanche is coming.

Text: A big fear, a medium fear and a small fear decided to work together on a family of four.

Text: Two spooky creatures—a big fella and a little ghost, have an agreement: none of them should ever scare to death the other’s friends. Only a small, healthy fear is permitted.

More on Documenta 12’s dark rooms tomorrow. (And check out Seattle’s own Henry Art Gallery high on a hill at Documenta.)