a pair of noticeably scuffed fake crocodile skin boots. The artists are finding Athens “extremely enjoyable” though challenging as well. He himself is transfixed with the idea of western civilisation being embedded in a monument on a rock. And the numbers are good: in a matter of weeks, over 100,000 have seen the show, although most aren’t Greeks but foreigners who have flown in.

While the newly opened Museum of Contemporary Art – housed in a former brewery and known as EMST – is the main venue and will send a selection of its own collection to Kassel, Documenta has been deliberately scattered across Athens, which is a chaotic place at the best of times.

Visitors were recently directed to “a specially prepared orchard pasture” at the city’s Agricultural Universityto view 54 lambs, each representing a country on the African continent, and dyed by the Malian artist Aboubakar Fofana differing shades of indigo to highlight the perils of migration. In fact, migration is a central theme, with the Berlin-based Kurdish artist Hiwa K, who fled Iraq in 1996, presenting some of the best work. A video retraces his steps to freedom via Greece, while his one-room apartment currently graces the courtyard of the Benaki Museum.

Risk-taker … Adam Szymczyk speaks at the opening. Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

Meanwhile, the Anishinaabe-Canadian artist Rebecca Belmore has carved a marble tent – the refuge of refugees world wide and symbol of the migrant crisis in Greece. It has been pitched, to the consternation of classical purists, within perfect view of the Periclean