documenta 12

So much art in Kassel (at least until September 23, when it goes back to being Kassel)!

In the NYTimes review of documenta 12, Holland Kotter wrote: "you go to glamorous, sun-splashed Venice to party, gaze and graze; you come to gray, pleasureless Kassel to think."

Well, Holland, I'll skip the wine-spilled tuxedo and get my grind on... danke.



Sanja Ivekovic's poppy fields were still blooming when we arrived in mid-August...



We started at the Schoss...



I caught two cops eating ice cream on the beat. They weren't happy to be photographed. File under: street theater.



Nedko Solakov's "FEARS" - 99 drawings with text.




Graphic pencil and ink drawings by Nasreen Mohamedi...

It is the lifting of all boats
the smudged pencilmark
sweeps and narrows
Practical applications include
slabs of concrete, rain gutters.



CK Rajan's photocollages...

Stepping out of buildings
cycling through floods
my face replaced by deluge
my history in mud



Photos of Jiri Kovanda's performace-based work from the 1960-70s. In this performance, Jiri walks around a room with his face on the wall.


...Some things look better when the weather breaks them... Ai Weiwei's sculpture of ancient doors collapsed in a windstorm early this summer.


Lily's friend Nanette performed in the Tricia Brown installation "Floor of the Forest"




Other highlights include:

Martha Rosler's "Color Fields" - My friend Chris just gifted me with a little book of Martha Rosler and Paul Chan in dialog, then I came up on the Color Fields, a short video.

Lin Yilin's "Safely Manoeuvring Across Lin He Road" - 36minute video of a man moving a wall of cement blocks across a busy thoroughfare. I could watch it all day.

Luis Jacob's "Album III" - a photography installation. Groupings.




On the floor in front of Romuald Hazoumé's gas-can boat installation "DREAM" was printed the text:

"Damned if they leave
and damned if they stay:
better, at least, to have gone,
and be drowned in the boat of their dreams."



(note: I bit these images from various sites on the web. I do it without attribution because the people around me at the galleries snapping pictures didn't ask my permission to take photos while I looked at the art. Fair trade.)