The Cellar - July 8th, 2017: Seamy Parthenon

What’s that? Looks like The Parthenon… but kind of funky. What’s it doing in Germany?
You can build anything, reproduce anything, copy anything, dream up anything, as long as you call it an Art Installation.
That’s what this is.

http://cellar.org/2017/banned3.jpg

Marta Minujín built this from scaffolding and sheet plastic, lit from in and out. It’s certainly big, although kind of crude.
It doesn’t look close enough to real to represent the skill in the original, or even close enough to be a tribute to it.
So what’s the point?

http://cellar.org/2017/banned2.jpg

Quote:

Minujín worked with students from Kassel University to identify 170 titles that have been historically banned worldwide by various institutions, and then sought help from the public to obtain 100,000 donated copies. The books were then wrapped in a protective plastic coating to shield them from the elements while allowing visitors to easily identify each title.
An earlier version of The Parthenon of Books was first installed in 1983, referencing an event in Minujín’s native Argentina where books where confiscated and locked up as part of a military junta. This new iteration rests on a site where Nazis burned books by Jewish and Marxist writers in 1933 as part of a broad campaign of censorship.

http://cellar.org/2017/banned1.jpg

So the high road, is protesting censorship.
The low road, is buying the labor of a group of students to help with this installation, paying with dirty books you and I had to
hide under the mattress or out in the garage.
Hmm… works for me. :thumb2:

link