KASSEL, 16 July – UK printmaker Anne E. Thomas makes the trek to dOCUMENTA (13) and discovers the site-specific sound experiences of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. As Thomas describes, Cardiff & Miller create sublime sound installations, often using Cardiff’s voice, that map onto existing spaces. The work, in a way, is a sort of “Audio AR” and like a visual installation from Mainfest.AR, Cardiff & Miller map a new experience, for “augmented humans,” onto the existing space. These new realities often map fictional elements onto “real” places and in experiencing their narrative exploration we discover new and deeper human truth.

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KASSEL, 12 July – Day 34. As the 100 days of dOCUMENTA (13) reach the 1/3 point, our intrepid dOCUMENTA press officer, blogger, and guide to all things “d,” Milena Berman, returns from her own week of travel to give us a guide to our experience of Karlsaue Park. Serendipitously enough, earlier today Ironyca commented that when you enter a new land in WoW your map is blank and it fills in only after you explore the land yourself, and this is Berman’s advice for Karlsaue, to ignore the map and just explore, to let the park, the sights, and the sounds unfold organically rather than be “stomped to.”

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KASSEL, 5 July – Trilby Minotaur has taken us up in some of dOCUMENTA (13)’s helicpoters and Milena Berman has taken us stomping through its muddy fields. Today perfumista Katherine Chan gives us the smell of dOCUMENTA (13) in her essay on perfume.

 
In 1945 fashion and war photographer Lee Miller had the opportunity to visit Hitler’s Berlin apartment where she famously took a bath in his tub. While there Miller also stole a bottle of perfume from the late Eva Braun. At dOCUMENTA (13) an exhibit shows Miller’s photographs, the perfume bottle, and Braun’s powder compact that Miller also took. In Byzantine artworld fashion, 2012 museum security guards would not allow Chan to take a photograph of the perfume bottle that Miller stole from Braun in 1945. Perhaps it’s for the best as it gives Chan the opportunity to let her mind roam across ideas of perfume and war and bring us to New York artist Lisa Kirk’s 2009 perfume project “Revolution.”

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KASSEL, 1 July – And on the 22nd of dOCUMENTA (13)’s 100 days Milena Berman finds herself returning yet again to Leaves of Grass, Geoffrey Farmer’s monumental, 60 foot long sculptural collage of cut-outs from a half-century of Life Magazines, spanning 1935 – 1985

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KASSEL, 6 June – Even before the drama with Critical Art Ensemble’s dOCUMENTA (13) helicopter rides, our intrepid field reporter Trilby Minotaur was shooting video of helicopters at dOCUMENTA. She wasn’t able to upload from her iPad in Kassel and sent this video to me (VB) on 6 June. I sped the video up, added audio by Snowflake, and posted it to YouTube. But we both forgot to actually post it here on iRez – till now.

For Your Viewing Enjoyment – 60 seconds of dOCUMENTA-prep statue moving on 6 June:

dOCUMENTA (13) video by Trilby Minotaur
Early June video from Kassel showing installation before the 9 June opening of dOCUMENTA (13)

Score: Occupy (Your Mind) by Snowflake

• Snowflake / CCMixter – Occupy (Your Mind)
• Critical Art Ensemble – Helicopter Part I
• Critical Art Ensemble – Helicopter Part II

And here’s a few more dOCUMENTA (13) videos from YouTube:

from Kasselmenta:

from wwwkunstundfilmde

from Vernissage

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KASSEL, 23 June – dOCUMENTA (13) dAY (14) Two weeks into the 100 days, San Francisco based art historian Milena Berman of theDOCUMENTAtion blog, and also of the d13 press office, reports on the 3,000 journalists stomping, often muddy shoe’d, through Kassel, and her efforts to help keep their spirits up in the face of so much powerful work around the d13 theme of “Collapse and Recovery.” To help the journalists recover she often directs them to gelato, bratwurst, and walks through Karlsaue Park.

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KASSEL, 18 June – [Reblog from BlouinArtInfo] Brad Pitt Goes Art Shopping in Kassel?: While high-rolling art collectors were gearing up for last week’s Art Basel buying frenzy in Switzerland, actor Brad Pitt opted for a more cerebral art buying experience, chartering a £30,000 jet to take him to Documenta, where he reportedly spent “thousands” on paintings to decorate his Paris chateau. Since, as far as we know, nothing is officially for sale at Documenta, this is quite a feat — but then Brad Pitt is quite a man.

• Reblog from BlouinArtInfo
• With reporting from The Sun

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KASSEL, 12 June – San Francisco based art historian Milena Berman of theDOCUMENTAtion blog is spending the 100 days of dOCUMENTA (13) here in Kassel. Here’s her update featuring info on d13 artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s luscious “notebook” project “100 Notes – 100 Thoughts.”

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KASSEL, 11 June – Founder & Director of the UK’s The Arts Catalyst, and Art, Science, Technology & Society blogger at nicolatriscott.org, Nicola Triscott takes us on a brief tour of some of the 300 artists from 56 countries and their mostly new commissions and site-specific works at dOCUMENTA (13)

The post Ruins, conflict, culture and science: dOCUMENTA (13) appeared first on iRez Salon.

Sam Durant did a large piece you can walk into using forms taken from gallows to question the death penalty. Emily Jacir took inscriptions from Palestinian books looted by Israel in 1948 and placed them around Kassel. Amar Kanwar had an installation in the Natural History Museum showing rice seeds and large handmade books with film projectors above them, so the image stayed when you turn the page. Lara Favaretto had a huge installation of scrap metal near the train station. Doug Ashford did small geometric paintings juxtaposed with photographs. I didn’t get a good photo of them, so I am showing the house in which they are displayed. That’s Mr Ashford in blue on the left.

The post Other interesting pieces appeared first on iRez Salon.

PARIS, 10 June – Journalist and art blogger at Mustikka, Ingrid Melano breaks down the 4 “positions” or identities of artists & thinkers articulated at dOCUMENTA (13)

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KASSEL, 9 June – Fear not dear reader! Yes the Critical Art Ensemble’s massive banner did come loose in a strong gust of wind, however iRez’ intrepid, on the ground reporter Trilby Minotaur was not, you will be relieved to know, crushed by the graphic representation of global wealth!

text of graphic novel page:

PART 2:

Disconnection

Oh No!

The graph comes loose in a gust of wind!

View from the helicopter as it ascends.

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KASSEL, 9 June – It’s opening day of dOCUMENTA (13) here in Kassel, the first of the “100 Days” of the exposition. Trilby explores Critical Art Ensemble’s massive installation, A Temporary Monument to Global Economic Inequality

text of graphic novel page:

SHOCKING STORY!

Critical Art Ensemble hung a graph depicting degrees of wealth, but a helicopter was needed to reach the level of the 1%.

A Public Misery Message: A Temporary Monument to Global Economic Inequality

This banner represents the economic wealth of the global population quintiles (each 20 percent of population) relative to each other. Each quintile’s average wealth (assets minus debt) is represented at a scale of 1cm = 100 USD. The wealth of the top 1 percent is so much greater than those below it that its distance from the rest of the quintiles must be represented by a helicopter flight rather than making the banner the 225 meters required to depict the top wealth holders’ proportional total assets. The top 1 percent owns over 15 times more wealth that the rest of the world combined.

Source: Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2011

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KASSEL, 8 June – dOCUMENTA (13) opens tomorrow! Trilby Minotaur is there today! In this page of her unfolding graphic novel she digs further into the dOCUMENTA (13) installations at the Kassel Museum of Natural History:

text of graphic novel page:

More Art at the Natural History Museum
Mark Dion created a display for the Schildbach Xylotheque, an 18th century set of Wooden Books about trees, each containing samples from that tree. The case is made of oak and has six inlaid wooden panels.

• Kassel Museum of Natural History website

About the museum:
from AGermanyAttraction.com

Ottoneum Natural History Museum
Steinweg 2, Kassel 34117 – Germany
A fine old theatre in Kassel is the Ottoneum, built in 1605 for Landgrave Maurice the Learned. It was Germany’s first permanent theatre building. Since 1885 the building has served as the town’s Natural History Museum (Naturkundemuseum). The collection held here is also one of the oldest in Europe, including many rare treasures of the natural world. The Goethe Elephant is one of the world’s first primed big mammal skeletons, and the Schildbach Wood Library from the 18th century is remarkable. The prime focus of the museum is the Kassel region, with many plants, animals and other natural phenomena displayed.

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KASSEL, 8 June – our international artist and European field reporter Trilby Minotaur has sent back another page from her dOCUMENTA (13) graphic novel.

Text from page:
At Kassel’s Museum of Natural History:
Claire Pentecost’s work introduces an alternative monetary system.
The Soil-erg is currency made by composting.

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KASSEL, 6 June – Our own real & virtual bookbinder & international artist of mystery is spending the week before the grand opening in Kassel, Germany preparing for dOCUMENTA (13). Here’s the first “page” from her dOCUMENTA (13) “graphic novel” just before all the action gets going:

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GHENT, BELGIUM, 4 June – What? What? iRez’ Trilby Minotaur NOT the only bookbinder heading to dOCUMENTA (13)!? Yes, it’s true, Rachel Marsden will also be heading over soon to see, among other things, what “Library in the Park” artist Massimo Bartolini has in store for Kassel.

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KASSEL, 2 June – theDOCUMENTAtion sets the stage for us for the coming 100 days in Kassel.

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Trilby is leaving for Kassel on Saturday to attend dOCUMENTA 13. She will be blogging it here. Stay tuned.

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