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What can I say? Everyone I spoke to was terribly disturbed: no shiny big things to look at! Instead there was sensitivity and thoughtfulness, like in the performances by Maria Hassabi. Many other works were not my thing - but there were so many exhibits that I was propelled to stay and meander through. I felt much of the work had in common a human presence and an exploration of humanity today.
Downtown - at the old sorting office - the works were wide ranging, from the wonderful overpowering video work ‘Atlas Fractured’ by Theo Eshetu as you entered the building ...
... to Irena Haiduk selling workers shoes and clothes priced according to your "income comfort level" on the top floor.
I adored Daniel García Andújar's work 'The Disasters of War – Trojan Horse', taking his starting point as Goya's disasters of war he had created a series of images and sculptures relating to war in all its forms but erasing the subject: religion. Daniel Garcia with his sculpture which is planned to be burnt during the run of the exhibition.
There were beautiful examples of works by older artists from all eras - such as Pavel Filonov, an art theorist and painter who graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Art in 1910.
The biggest attraction was the grand 'The Parthenon of Books' which is a replica of the temple on the Acropolis by artist Marta Minujín - the scale and form of the structure had been recreated into a monument of censored books first produced by the artist in Argentina in 1983- each one sealed in a plastic bag. It is a symbol of resistance to any banning of writings and the persecution of their authors. In the same place on May 19 1933 some 2000 books were burned. Also in 1941 the Kassel library was burned by allied bombing where 350,000 books were lost. The violence of war against culture is an enduring legacy.
People came and delivered their books and the result was a colourful array of unusual architecture and surprising censorship.
The art works were diverse and immense I loved Roee Rosen's video, 'The Dust Channel’ - an incredibly entertaining political opera and humorous critique circling around James Dyson who made 5000 prototypes to come up with the perfect vacuum cleaner - it proposed that perhaps he could instead turn his brilliant creative problem solving world to hunger or housing shortages?
I liked the work of Australian Gordon Hookey who had depicted a very true History of Australia - of course the Brits don't come out clean.
'The Welcoming Gate' by Zafos Xagoraris was interesting - it referenced a group of 7000 Greek soldiers who were "guest prisoners" of the German Government in 1916 - they were allowed to walk freely around the city of Gorlitz. We had to enter a container which seemed to have landed from nowhere and led us down to a disused train station. Outside by the tracks a sign reading 'Xaipete' (hello), the original had been placed in the entrance of the Greek PoW camp.
