2:37 p.m.
20/07/17 - At the Friedrichsplatz, in the heart of the city of Kassel, in front of the Fridericianum, rises Marta Minujin's Parthenon of Forbidden Books. It is located in the same place where the Nazis burned thousands of books in 1933, and in front of a building (today, a museum) which used to house a library that was bombed during WWII (350.000 books were turned into ashes). The installation is part of the Documenta 14 platform and has become quite the star of the exhibition.
The Parthenon of Books, by Marta Minujin (2017)
The dimensions of the installation match those of the Parthenon at the Acropolis (30 mts by 70 mts) and it's made of a scaffolding structure covered with books that were once forbidden or still are. You'll see Bertold Brecht books, which were banned by the Nazis, Moby Dick which was forbidden in Texas, The Little Prince in Argentina or Hamlet in Ethiopia. It's shocking to see how this happened in every country and in every language, with no distinction.
The Parthenon of Books, by Marta Minujin (2017)
The books are stuck to the metal structure and covered with a transparent film for protection, since the Parthenon is completely outdoors. Still today book donations are received, for it was not completed when opened to the public.
The Parthenon of Books, by Marta Minujin (2017)
The installation has no perimetral protection, so visitors can just walk inside, being this one of the few places no paid tickets are required to enter. When Documenta is over, Minujin (Argentina, 1943) will give back the books to the people so they can be read. The destruction of the Parthenon was planned and is part of the artwork. The artist explains: “I create a work of art for people to make it disappear." This is in fact an ephemeral artwork, far from the rules of the art market, just like Marta likes it.
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