Jul. 18th, 2012

Kassel

Jul. 18th, 2012 09:08 pm
abouthalfthree: black on white lino print of a domestic street (Default)
Am in Kassel, at dOCUMENTA exhibition: massive international art thing. Takes over the city. This is my first full day, and I've got most a day tomorrow before I go to Köln. Was here yesterday evening after spending the morning at the rest of the Made in Germany Zwei (2) exhibition in Hanover, which I saw the first half of when I arrived there on Sunday. Also I've started my reading for next semester.

SO MUCH ART!

Most of it is excellent, and most of the stuff that isn't is video art, so it works out.

Have discovered some new favourite artists. Have their names underlined on my scribbled on plan of the exhibition buildings. I don't think I'll get to see everything, but I'll've made a good crack at it.

I am staying at very nice hotel. My German teacher recommended that I get a package deal thing. I couldn't do the travel, accommodation, tickets thing because I wasn't sure where I'd be travelling from, but booking accommodation and tickets together was definitely easier than tracking down a hotel myself. Last night I got to have a bath. I am going to have another tonight.

The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. In one there is the great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its chain spokes, the Ferris wheel of spinning cages, the death-ride with crouching motorcyclists, the big top with the clump of trapezes hanging in the middle. The other half-city is of stone and marble and cement, with the bank, the factories, the palaces, the slaughterhouse, the school, and all the rest. One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary, and when the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city.

~ Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino