Dokumenta - Ein Kustausstellung in Kassel

I have been in Kassel for approximately a week and a half and as previously mentioned, it was so easy and comfortable to slip back into the life I had here.  I ride a bike all over the city, I eat in the University cafeteria, and I sometimes sleep on the Svenson's couch- just like old times.  But things are different here too, and I'm still surprised every day.

The biggest difference is that the city of Kassel is currently hosting Dokumenta, a contemporary art exhibit that occurs every five years and lasts for 100 days.  I was actually in Germany for the last Dokumenta, in 2007, and I wasn't very far away.  I had been studying in Marburg for the summer and after my program finished I came to Kassel for a few days.  (That's when I first met the Svensons, thus beginning the chain of events that has me where I am now.)  To to best of my memory, I visited in August which means that Dokumenta was still going on, but I didn't see a thing.  I knew it was happening, but at the time it seemed pretty inconsequential.  Fast forward four and a half years to February 2012 when I was leaving Kassel just a few months before Dokumenta was beginning again.  This time it felt the opposite of inconsequential. I was irritated that I had lived in Kassel for three years when it was boring, and I was leaving just before it became the most exciting city in Germany (patent pending)!

It was pretty lucky for me to be able to come back to Germany at this time, and extremely lucky that I could spend two weeks in Kassel.  Because I know the city and I'm more aware of what Dokumenta is all about, I've been able to explore a lot during my days here, even without devoting my full time and energy to it.  One aspect of Dokumenta, and maybe contemporary art in general, is that it isn't confined to an art gallery.  The installations can be found anywhere and everywhere- in the streets, in the department stores, on the buses and in parking garages.  You can stumble upon a Dokumenta piece at any time if you are paying attention.  And what makes Dokumenta and Kassel so special is that many of the installations aren't able to be removed, or aren't desired to be removed.  There are many pieces that become a permanent part of the city, and in fact after each Dokumenta, the people of Kassel vote on one installation that they want the city to buy and keep.  This means that you find Dokumenta art throughout the city all the time, not just during the exhibition.

One of my favorite pieces that is now an irreversible part of Kassel is called 7,000 Eichen (7,000 Oaks).  In 1982, for Dokumenta 7, Joseph Beuys began planting 7,000 Oak trees all over the city of Kassel.  Each tree was paired with a large, column like stone, about three feet tall.  The project was a huge undertaking as you can imagine, and in fact it wasn't completed until Dokumenta 8 in 1987.  The first tree to be planted and the last tree to be planted are right next to each other, and in 1987 the size difference was very obvious.  So if you are walking through Kassel, and you see a three foot tall stone next to an Oak tree, then you know you are in the presence of art.  I like this about Kassel, that there is art hiding in plain sight.

The first and last trees planted. 

Of course, there is also art hiding in hidden places too, which I learned today.  After spending the morning in one of the larger Dokumenta museums, I was sitting by the Rathaus (City Hall), browsing through the Dokumenta guide book and planning my next moves.  I saw on the map that there was a piece called the Aschrott Fountain right in front of the Rathaus, but I didn't remember ever seeing anything.  I read in the guide that the artist who created the piece, Horst Hoheisel, would be giving a talk on 11 September at 14:00.  I looked at my watch and it was 13:55, so I went over to investigate.  I am so very glad that I did, because what I learned might be the coolest hidden piece of art in Kassel.

In 1908, a fountain was built in front of the Kassel Rathaus, comissioned by a man named Sigmund Aschrott as a gift to the city of Kassel.  The fountain was 12 meters high, and looked like this:

Aschrott was a jew, so in 1939, before Adolf Hitler came to Kassel to make a speech, the fountain was destroyed.  Eventually, people forgot that the fountain had any connection to Herr Aschrott, and in the 1960s the space was filled with a flower bed.  Hoheisel told us that there is a saying in Germany, not to trust any flower beds in a city.  If there's a flower bed, that probably means that there was once a monument, fountain or building that had some significance for jews.  In the 1980s, a group wanted to restore the memory of the Aschrott fountain by building another one.  Plans were never finalized, and so in 1987, for Dokumenta 8, our hero Herr Hoheisel presented his plans for a fountain to commemorate the Aschrott fountain.  Hoheisel constructed a structure that looked exactly like the original fountain, with one 12 meter high peak in the center, and four smaller ones surrounding it, and then turned it upside down, burying the peak 12 meters underground.  To the casual observer, there are simply some grates in front of the Rathaus, possibly for rainwater drainage.

This "negative-space", underground fountain is a memorial to the fountain that was lost in 1939, and a memorial to what that loss represents.  When Hoheisel was building the fountain, he started getting harassed by neo-nazi groups, and even received death threats.  Eventually, the group sent him a letter on April 20, (Hitler's birthday) saying that they were calling that an "amnesty day" and they would stop bothering him.  This was likely because a group of neo-nazis holding a rally on the spot where the fountain was had been photographed and some of them were facing harassment.  Hoheisel also ran into some problems with some sewer lines under the plaza, meaning he literally ran into them.  The city told him to just chop the top off of the fountain, because no one would see it, so who cares?  Hoheisel didn't want to do this because a) that defeats the point of this memorial, and b) the structure is actually hanging in a way, and could be lifted out of the ground and placed upright.  Many people have asked him when he would do this, and he said that at this point, with the existence of neo-nazis and other hateful groups in Germany, he won't do it.  When there is no more hatred, maybe then the fountain can be righted.

So, there is your historical art lesson for the day.  Kasselarians: remember to look closely at everything you see in your city, because it might be hidden art.