In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis banned books that were written by authors who were of Jewish descent, or had pacifist or Communist sympathies. The list included such luminaries as Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack London. Now, some eight decades later, a monument is being constructed in honor of those censored books.
Argentine artist Marta Minujín has created a full-scale replica of one of the world’s most famous structures, the Parthenon in Athens, constructed entirely from censored books. The symbolism is striking, as the Parthenon is the very antithesis of political repression. Indeed, the artist went on to add in a statement that the original Parthenon is "the aesthetic and political ideals of the world’s first democracy."
The display is part of the Documenta 14 art festival in Kassel, Germany. Now in its 14th iteration, the Documenta was first established in 1955 an attempt to bring Germany up to speed with modern art, after the horrific years of Nazism. For the current exhibition, Minujín created the structure by sourcing 100,000 donated books from around the world. The novels were then secured to the steel structure with plastic sheeting, protecting them from the natural elements while allowing sunlight to filter through the building. The site of the exhibition is noteworthy as well, as the city of Kassel (located in central Germany) was where several thousand books were burned during the Nazi-led campaign to rid the country of books deemed un-German.
The temporary exhibition will run through September 17, 2017. When it ends, the books will be taken down and recirculated around the world.