The first artwork of documenta 14 will be presented at the Frankfurter Buchmesse on October 20, 2016. The press talk with artist Marta Minujín, Adam Szymczyk, documenta 14’s artistic director, and Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurter Buchmesse, will take place on the Open Stage at the Agora.
For “The Parthenon of Books,” Argentinian artist Marta Minujín will collect up to 100,000 previously forbidden books that are currently being re-published or whose distribution is still prevented by censorship. On 10 June 2017, on the occasion of the opening of documenta 14 in Kassel, the installation will be presented to the public and will be on view for 100 days.
Marta Minujín, the team of documenta 14, and the Frankfurter Buchmesse have urged the public, publishers, and authors to donate books for “The Parthenon of Books” between 19 and 23 October 2016, and thus to become part of the work. Books can also be donated after Frankfurter Buchmesse by sending them via mail or bringing them personally to the documenta 14 offices either in Athens or Kassel. The collected books will be assembled in Kassel to form a replica of the temple on the Acropolis in Athens, aesthetically and politically representing a symbol of the first democracy.
Minujín’s “The Parthenon of Books” traces its origins to an installation titled “El Partenón de libros”, which was realized in 1983, shortly after the collapse of the civilian-military dictatorship in Argentina. The work included the very books that had been banned by the ruling junta. After five days of exhibition, the visitors removed and handed out the books. A collective public action devoted to returning the books to circulation is also being planned for the new Parthenon at the end of documenta 14.
In addition to documenta 14’s program at the Agora of the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the documenta Archive will be hosted in the section THE ARTS+. Within this framework there will be a workshop on 21 October in THE ARTS+ fairgrounds to develop strategies to digitize the documenta Archive and make it available globally. THE ARTS+ takes place during Frankfurter Buchmesse for the first time this year, and aims to discuss the possibilities of digitization in the cultural and creative industries.
