Die Kasseler Liste began as a cooperation between the international art exhibition documenta 14 and the German Department of the University of Kassel. The two organizations teamed up to support the preparation and implementation of the centrepiece of the 2016/17 exhibition, Martha Minujín’s (literally) monumental installation The Parthenon of Books. In the centre of Kassel, on the famous Friedrichsplatz, the Argentinian artist erected a replica of the Parthenon in Athens, covered entirely with formerly and currently banned books. Donations from across the world enabled this construction which quickly grew after the foundations were laid on June 10th, 2017. Ultimately, approximately 70.000 books covered the scaffolding, each of them conserved and attached in weatherproof sleeves. They were taken down little by little following the one hundredth day of documenta and distributed among the guests of the exhibition.
This was not Minujín‘s first temple of books. Already in 1983, after the end of dictatorial rule in Argentina, she had produced a similar but smaller monument to democracy and freedom of speech. The 2017 Parthenon in Kassel, in turn, was built to scale, modelled after the eponymous temple on the Acropolis, and news outlets reported on the “largest art work in the world.” This new installation was no longer a reaction to a specific government or political context, but a comment on the restriction of free speech that can occur anyplace at anytime through the banning of books. In a striking manner, The Parthenon of Books visualized the global scale of censorship.
