Day Two: Exploring dOCUMENTA(13) artworks at Hauptbanhof Train Station and surrounds.
Highlights: Janet Cardiff and George Burres Miller - Video and sound scape. Just amazing. Very clever piece and at times it was also very emotional. Particularly the scene where a German man gives a brief account of his memories of the WWII bombing, the destruction of lives and the train that departed from Kassel to one of the Concentration Camps from Platform number 13. The contemporary dance sequence at the end, was pure poetry. Exquisite.
Image of a permanent installation at Hauptbanhof. A wheel barrel filled with steel boxes that hold rocks covered in paper with notes from the Jewish children of Kassel. The children wrote letters and drew images, before being sent to the Concentration Camps.
Susan Phillipsz - Another beautiful sound scape experience in the middle of the train station. Well worth the wait.
Clemens von Wedemeyer - Sometimes I follow a video without complete awareness of its meaning. The trilogy of videos from this series were engaging but I couldn't comprehend the connection, part from the actors who appeared in different roles and different timeframes. It wasn't until I read about the artwork that I understood that the three videos depict across three large video screens a narrative about a premise in Kassel, during three different eras in history (1945, 1970's, 1990's). The premise is a Catholic Church and Monastery, that was then converted into a Prison, a WWII Concentration Camp, and an Asylum for Young women. It is now an open-centre for Pyschiatric patients.
Tino Sehgal at Huggenottenhaus. As incredible as what I'd been told. One of the d(13) "must see".
Additional highlights: Meeting Auckland artist Judith Rosamund and her friend recently retired Art teacher from Kassel.
On a lighter note...
William Kentridge
