dOCUMENTA 13: Bibliophilia

Here are some panel details from aforementioned Mark Dion's commission for dOCUMENTA 13,  a hexagonal immersive display cabinet for the Schildbach Xylotheque in the Ottoneum.

dOCUMENTA13: Bibliophilia

This is the Schildbach Xylotheque (from the Greek xylon for wood and theque for repository).
These specimens were collected by naturalist Carl Schildbach in the late 18th century.
The 530 'books' in the collection are made from the wood, branches, twigs, flowers and leaves of 441 local tree species. They have been moulded and carved into monograph format, with the spine displaying the natural appearance of bark from trunk or branch.
Within is a diorama of the flowering and fruiting bodies of the species, and a written botanical description.

Mark Dion (American, b1961) was commissioned by dOCUMENTA13 to rehouse the Xylotheque for permanent exhibition in the Ottoneum (Kassel's museum of natural history, one of dOCUMENTA13's many venues). Known for his work exploring the aesthetic of the Wunderkabinetts/ cabinets of curiosity, as well as his appropriation of various archaeological and scientific methods, his work often investigates the exhibition of objects. Perfect, then, for this task.

Dion added six books to the Xylotheque, including one made from trees planted by Joseph Beuys in 1982 for dOCUMENTA 7, for the Land Art work 7000 Oaks.

dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library Trolleys

No trolley portrait additions for my library trolleys series today.

However, I came across a librarian in her natural habitat browsing library trolley catalogues.
I was pleased as punch.

Sabine Franke brings me up to date with trolley technology.

Bucher und Prasentationswagens!

dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library

The dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library was founded in 1961.

It was an idea of Arnold Bode: founder of the dOCUMENTA exhibitions, artist, curator, art historian, furniture designer, architect, local paladin. A true "Tausendsassa": a german expression for a man of a thousand talents.
Bode, in fact, designed the Bauhausian building that houses the Art School Library [Kunsthochschule Kassel] I had visited earlier in the week.

Classic Bode

While Bode conceived the Archive, it was eventually opened by the City of Kassel, running parallel but separate to the dOCUMENTA organisation.
The collection was set up and run by Art Historian Lucy Von Wayer in rooms within the Murhard Library (a central city library now integrated into the Kassel University Library network )

Lucy may have had a hard time at the role. Without any formal library training, and very much NOT Arnold Bode's choice for the role (he had planned his dOCUMENTA co-curator Werner Haftmann take the job), she nonetheless pioneered the collection that survives today.

The collection moved into the current premises in the Kulturhaus (directly behind the Fridericianum) in 1989, which houses a collection of arts organisations including the dOCUMENTA organisation proper.

dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library

One of the first things I noticed upon entry to the dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library is the sheer volume of material successfully stored in this space. 

There are over 100 000 items in the collection, and they are all present on this floor to ceiling shelving. 

With no lending and no offsite stacks, everything you need is right here. Or maybe, right up there near the ceiling. There have been no ladder fatalities to date.

dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library

A highlight of my personal dOCUMENTA (13) was spending time with Petra Hinck, Associate Director of the dOCUMENTA Archive and Library.


She generously spent time showing me the collection and projects of her institution during the opening week of dOCUMETA (13), no doubt the busiest week of her year.
I found in Petra a keen humour and a fellow art library tourist- she and some colleagues last year spent time in New York visiting major institutional bibliotheques including the Frick, the Met, MOMA, and NYU's Fales collection- so we were able to share experiences and some genuine thrall at the resources of these eminent institutions.

dOCUMENTA(13): Bibliophilia and Libricide

Libricide remembered in the work of Michael Rakowitz.

What Dust Will Rise? (2012)

"Special Pride" in the destruction of a Jewish Library in Poland

"For us it is a matter of special pride to destroy the Talmudic Library which has been known as the greatest in Poland...we threw out of the building the great Talmudic Library and carted it to market. There we set fire to the books. The fire lasted for twenty hours. The Jews of Lublin were assembled around and cried bitterly. The cries almost silenced us. Then we summoned a military band, and joyful shouts of the soldiers silenced the sounds of Jewish cries."
           - Frankfurter Zeitung, March 28 1941

Libricide and other less violent forms of "library loss" further explored in this UNESCO published treatise:
'Lost Memory -  Libraries And Archives Destroyed In The Twentieth Century' 

dOCUMENTA(13): Bibliophilia and Libricide

More Archive/Library/Book works at dOCUMENTA (13):

Michael Rakowitz What dust will rise? (2012)

Commissioned and produced for dOCUMENTA(13)

From the exhibit info:

What Dust Will Rise? recreates selections from the library of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel that were destroyed in a fire in the Fridericianum during a bombing by the British Royal Airforce on September 9 1941.With the help of stone carvers from Afganistan, Michael Rakowitz remade these lost volumes out of travertine quarried in the hills of Bamiyan, where two monumental sixth-century sandstone Buddhas were dynamited by the Taliban. The undertaking conjures tombstones and recalls the tradition of stone books serving as surrogates for the illiterate. One sculpture has been donated to the National Museum of Kabul, which was also severely damaged under the Taliban.

dOCUMENTA(13): Bibliophilia and Libricide

Archive/Library/Book works at dOCUMENTA (13)

Michael Rakowitz What Dust will Rise? (2012)

Also on display in the Michael Rakowitz room are monographs burnt during the bombings and subsequent fires in the library, deemed "too unimportant to restore".

These burnt books not only speak of the cultural loss caused by the Allied attacks of this period, but also of the infamous and widespread libricide committed by the Nazis during their reign.

dOCUMENTA(13): Bibliophilia

Archive/Library/Book works at dOCUMENTA (13)

 Emily Jacir  ex libris (2010-2012) 

Installation with photographs take from cell phone. Commissioned and produced by dOCUMENTA(13)

From The Guidebook:

Jacirs's contribution to dOCUMENTA13 : ex libris (2010-2012), addresses the looting, destruction and reinstitution of books...
Jacir has chosen the Zwehrentrum in which to exhibit her own monument to the approximately 30 000 books belonging to Palestinian homes, libraries and institutions that were looted by Israel in 1948; six thousand of these books are kept and catalogued in the Jewish National Library in West Jeruselum under A.P. (abandoned property).
Jacir photographed these books with her cell phone over the course of many visits. she also went though all the books in the library's Oriental Reading Room, searching for any that had been assimilated into the main library system external to the A.P. designation.

dOCUMENTA(13): Bibliophilia

I will be posting library, archive and exciting biblio related material I come across here at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany.

The first is a work by Hubertus Gojowczyk . From the exhibit info:

Hubertus Gojowczyk's "Door to the Library" is the first acquisition of the Neue Galerie (MHK) in connection with a documenta exhibition. The work was installed in the staircase during the documenta 6 in 1977. Since the reopening of the Neue Galerie in November 2011 it has found its new place in the basement.

It evoked memories for me of Jayne Dyer's excellent "Spare Room".
Doors and books.

Jayne Dyers' "Spare Room" 2009. Image from Historic Houses Trust