At the beginning of September I headed to Kassel to check out the huge modern art festival (Documenta) which only happens every 5 years for 100 days in Kassel, a post-war tradition that started in 1955.
The art was sometimes interesting, puzzling, boring, colourful, strange, beautiful, old, or unclear. There were poems spelled out in light and dark dryer lint, dresses made of electric light bulbs, and the hill behind the city’s castle was re-landscaped by Chinese farmers to form rice patties.
Below are some additional highlights, with only a little interpretation:
J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere , Headgear Series. 1974-2004. Documentary photos of traditional hair styles in Nigeria.
Trisha Brown’s rope scaffold performance art piece with dancers crossing the grid and climbing in and out of clothing.
Guitar symphony: guitar picks were attached to a wheel which every once and a while received a signal to turn, making the guitar play a chord which echoed throughout the room. There were around 20 guitars scattered throughout the room creating a beautiful, haunting reverberation.
Gonzalo Diaz’s Eclipsis. This was an interesting piece in a small room where only a few people at a time were allowed to enter. As you come in you only see a white circle of light. When you finally lose patience and walk across the room, as you cross the path between the wall and the light, a small inscription can be read, which roughly translates to:
“You travel to the heart of Germany only to read the word “Art” beneath your own shadow.”
Ai Weiwei’s creation from 1001 ancient Chinese doors of a specific dynasty (sorry I forgot which one...). The original sculpture is below, but after only one week a huge storm came and blew it down. Far from being perturbed the artist raved about nature having a hand in it and that it has only now reached its full perfection.
Sanja Ivekovic planted a poppy field on what is normally a stone courtyard in front of the main exhibition space at Friedrichsplatz. Unfortunately still two weeks after the opening there was only one poppy on the entire field, but it eventually bloomed although I just caught the tail end of it.
Other untitled art:
There were many other really bizarre and fascinating art pieces that one just cannot capture on film, especially the performance art and videos. Lin Yilin slowly transported a brick wall, brick by brick across a street in rush hour in Guǎngzhōu, China's third-largest city. In Graciela Carnevale’s “Action for the Ciclo de Arte Experimental” (1968) the artist invited guests to her exhibition opening. Upon arriving they were surprised to find only empty walls. She slipped out, locked the door of the exhibition space and went away. For an hour, people waited, both inside and outside. Finally, someone smashed the window from the outside and released the people who had been locked in. The artist said she was trying to demonstrate situations in which ordinary people can be driven to violence.
After so much art I had a wonderful walk up the park in Wilhemshöhe which overlooks the rest of Kassel.
