100,000 banned books: Germanists at the University of Kassel prepare documenta artwork

Argentine artist Marta Minujín is planning a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens for documenta 14, which begins June 10 in Kassel, Germany, to be clad in 100,000 books; some of these titles were banned for years but are now being legally distributed again, others are published in some countries but banned elsewhere. The documenta management unveiled the project today (Oct. 6) and will call for book donations at the Frankfurt Book Fair; interested parties can send in books starting Oct. 20 to participate in this work of art.

The basis for deciding which titles are eligible is being created, among other things, by a team of students led by Kassel German studies professor Dr. Nikola Roßbach and visiting professor Dr. Florian Gassner: a list of several tens of thousands of works that were banned in different countries or regions and at different times. This includes, for example, literature banned during the Third Reich, but also works such as Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" or Lewis Caroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The list will be online until October 20, but will then be continuously updated.

For the list, the Kassel students are combining existing indexes, such as the Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum from 1948 (over 5,400 titles) or a list of books banned in Austria between 1750 and 1848 (around 33,000 titles), which was compiled in a project at the University of Vienna (Prof. Dr. Norbert Bachleitner). These lists are supplemented by our own research. The Kassel students are also responsible for comparing the books sent in with the list.

"We are very happy to support this exciting project with our expertise," Prof. Roßbach was pleased to say. "It also provides us with a welcome opportunity to approach the topic in our courses." For example, two seminars on banned literature are taking place in the current winter semester. The University of Kassel's Argentina Forum is additionally flanking the project with an Argentine Day in the summer semester of 2017.

The idea goes back to a similar installation by Minujín in Buenos Aires in 1983. For documenta 14, the artwork will be erected again as "The Parthenon of Books"; it is intended to send a signal against the banning of texts and the persecution of their authors. At the end of the exhibition, the books will be distributed.

More about the project on the documenta 14 website: www.documenta14.de.

Book donations are possible until mid-December, information at this link: 
http://www.documenta14.de/the_parthenon_of_books/donate/de

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Nikola Roßbach
University of Kassel
Institute for German Studies
Department of Modern German Literature
E-mail: n.rossbach[at]uni-kassel[dot]de 
 

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communication, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 561 804-1961
E-Mail: presse[at]uni-kassel[dot]de
www.uni-kassel.de