Wednesday, June 21, 2017

RETHINKING: Documenta against Nazis




Dear Friends:


As we learned through History, all the totalitarian regimes try to block the cultural initiatives of people to avoid the intellectuals, academics and members of universities reveal the true intentions and plans of the rulers.

This was one of the tactics used by the Nazism in Germany when Hitler became ruler of this country.

From its beginnings as European nation, Germany was a rich country in intellectual movements and with very prestigious universities and professors.

When Hitler took the power, his followers banned a lot of books and materials that were the thinking of brilliant brains and a high educated society.

By the way, during my years studying in Germany, my teachers explained to me about the terrible oppression of the Nazis, prohibiting a lot of intellectual activities of the population that were against the regime.

From the ashes of this totalitarian regime, step by step, the new Germany has rebuilt its institutions and opened doors to everybody who wants to exchange ideas and lives in a free society.

Today Germany has great libraries, museums and very prestigious cultural centers and schools where everybody can learn about the real values of this country and the horrible moments the own Germans lived during the Nazism.

Myself I enjoyed several times walking through to the great The Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse), the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies that come every October to Germany from U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, Iran, Japan and also from small countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Returning to the burning of books of the Nazis, I would like to comment details of an artistic and cultural event that is holding in Kassel, a city of the Hessen state during the month of June.

The event named Documenta 14 has a series of activities and exhibitions linked with the new face of the country after the Nazism.

Probably, this year, the most interesting for visitors is the ‘Parthenon of Books’, a replica of the Greek Parthenon built with a lot of books that were prohibited during the times Hitler and also for other totalitarian regimes across the world.

This artistic monument was built by the Argentine artist Marta Minujín. It is a temple with towering metal columns covered with nearly 50,000 books that were or are banned somewhere in the world.

The artist erected the ‘Parthenon of Books’ in a square where the Nazis once burned books in the old city of Kassel. It includes a lot of books gathered through donations worldwide also from other countries that suffered the lash of totalitarian governments.

This art creation of Marta Minujín gives us new evidences of how the Germans lived under the totalitarian regime that controlled all the activities of the population with the surveillance of the Gestapo, the secret police of Hitler.  And also, it shows how other totalitarian regimes continue trying to close the mouth and eyes of the citizens of the world who want freedom and respect for their civil rights.

Documenta is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by the artist Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of a Federal Horticultural Show which took place in Kassel at that time with the intention of show the modern art banishing and repressing by the Nazis.

This first Documenta featured many artists who are generally considered to have had a significant influence on modern art. The more recent exhibitions feature art from all continents; nonetheless most of it is site-specific.

Every Documenta is limited to 100 days of exhibition, which is why it is often referred to as the "museum of 100 days".

Documenta is not a selling exhibition. It often coincides with three other major art world events: the Art Basel, Venice Biennale and “Skulptur Projekte Münster”.

The name of the exhibition is an invented word. It was invented by Arnold Bode in 1955 to demonstrate the intention to be a documentation of modern art which was not available for the German public during the Nazi era.

A lot of reflections can to our minds when we see how the totalitarian regimes try to suffocate the intellectual activities of the people and how they persecute to everybody who doesn’t follow the directions of the ruler and his followers.

We, the human beings, can survive long time with a little food and water, but we cannot survive when the persecution of gangs and mafias of totalitarian rulers hit our own skin and try to destroy our brains with physical and/or intellectual torture.

Definitely, the freedom of speech and expression – books, art… - that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects are more than a daily ration of bread and water.

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Next, you can read some of my last comments in the blog of the WSJ – Journal Community during the last few days.



Domingo A. Trassens
WORLD RETHINK
Rethinking the world with you
Twitter page:
(More than 17K tweets posted)
Wall Street Journal – Journal Community page:
(More than 9300 recommendations received from other members since the new Journal Community started in 2014 and 7900 in the previous JC.)



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MY BLOG COMMENTS



Mr. Spicer: You are learning that is very difficult to be a good spokesman of the Trump White House.
06/21/2017 04:47:37 PM
1 Recommendation


Republican Karen Handel showed to the country that the GOP remains alive.
06/21/2017 02:47:25 AM
3 Recommendations


The killing of Otto Warmbier is crime that the North Korean regime has to pay with very painful price. Patience came to an end.

If the American student had been Israeli, by now the North Korean dictator was dead.
06/21/2017 01:54:11 AM
2 Recommendations


(This story comments several cases of teens who are fixing broken smart-phones with initiative and good work.)

It is great to see teens and youngsters with initiative, smart brains and looking the way to earn money with their own work. Go ahead!

Today with the tools and technical literature they have, the teens who want to work, and they have initiative, they can make great works and earn good money.

These teens are the future generation that we need to rebuild America like in its first times.

The teens who only demand from others and they don't put their own effort to make a good work don't deserve our respect.
06/20/2017 08:41:25 PM
29 Recommendations


(This story comments that Ford decided to import the Focus model directly from China after it canceled the project to build a factory in Mexico.)

A Chinese Ford is not a American Ford.
06/20/2017 07:22:42 PM
4 Recommendations


For Amazon, it is cheap to use its own retail systems in the delivery of books, to deliver boxed food.
06/20/2017 12:29:25 AM
2 Recommendations


(The Facebook’s CEO made a big speech only talking about the incomes of the “millennials”.)

Mr. Zuckerberg only thinks in the incomes of the “millennial generation”, but he doesn’t care for the low income of real American workers and the elder people who work for short money because their retirements are not enough for a basic decent way of living. He lives in a fantasy sphere around his elite.

(Another WSJ blogger defined Mr. Zuckerberg as “a hypocrite” and a lot of readers agreed.) 06/20/2017 12:20:41 AM
6 Recommendations


Megyn Kelly is only an invention of a fictitious media without deed professional roots. Her discussions with Mr. Trump showed the level of her stupidities.
06/20/2017 12:03:36 AM
2 Recommendations


Today London, Paris and Brussels are horror capitals.
06/19/2017 11:46:05 PM
3 Recommendations


Everybody with human feelings and strong principles of freedom and justice shares heartfelt sympathy to Otto Warmbier's family.

Barbaric treatments are normal in the North Korean regime. Remember, how the dictator killed several members of his family and the rockets he use to execute one or two of his generals who didn't hear his bored meetings.
06/19/2017 11:29:52 PM
4 Recommendations


Technology giants always have big tentacles.
06/18/2017 11:45:57 PM
2 Recommendations


Terrific race in the technology world!
06/18/2017 11:33:25 PM
0 Recommendations


Probably, Israelis want to build good "links" with Syria thinking in a post-Assad future.
06/18/2017 09:19:57 PM
2 Recommendations


(Last Sunday, a lot of people remembered their Dads with good feelings and gifts.)

"I love You, Dad" has a lot of more value than the more expensive gifts of the world.
06/18/2017 09:09:15 PM
3 Recommendations


Helmul Kohl was a German leader who engineered and pushed forward the Unified Germany and started the building of the European Union together with the French.
06/17/2017 08:47:57 PM
2 Recommendations


Amazon is a retail leader with an original business model and strong technology infrastructure focused to the services for consumers.
06/17/2017 08:31:26 PM
2 Recommendations


This is a regrettable image of lands where live Americans who make America great too.
06/17/2017 06:27:14 PM
2 Recommendations


The incident in Washington with the Erdogan's bullies is a good picture how dictatorship regimes act.
06/17/2017 04:01:55 AM
5 Recommendations


It is true that others never returned from the North Korean "paradise", but the crime committed against Otto Warmbier doesn't have pardon.

Only monsters can enjoy with this kind of crimes. This looks like a terror movie.
06/16/2017 04:28:21 PM
4 Recommendations


Amazon is becoming a huge "empire" with multi-faces businesses.  Pending question: Is this good for the economy?
06/16/2017 04:01:52 PM
5 Recommendations


Can more American troops in Afghanistan improve the gloomy current scenario?
06/14/2017 01:51:57 PM
2 Recommendations


After September 11, I never wanted to live in a tower... Here, you see one of the reasons.
06/14/2017 06:06:59 AM
14 Recommendations


Really, after killing Yahoo, Marissa Mayer does not deserve $187 million.
06/13/2017 08:48:12 PM
2 Recommendations


The History of Technology will remember forever that Marissa Mayer was the Yahoo's killer.
06/13/2017 08:13:20 PM
2 Recommendations


Ms. Mayer came to Yahoo with very good expectations, but her performance as CEO was very poor.
06/13/2017 08:06:06 PM
3 Recommendations


Documenta in Kassel is a wonderful art-cultural experience of the best of our human intellect.
06/12/2017 11:36:33 PM
2 Recommendations


Christians cannot return to the Muslim countries because the religious persecution is growing in a very bad direction.
06/12/2017 11:14:52 PM
2 Recommendations


Today, Theresa May has not enough power to continue leading Brexit.
06/12/2017 08:23:10 PM
2 Recommendations


It looks like Labor Department has not new good ideas.
06/11/2017 08:21:15 PM
2 Recommendations


This is not the first incident where Afghan troops kill U.S. soldiers. 
I suspect that perhaps they are Taliban fans embedded in the Afghanistan's army.
06/10/2017 09:44:40 PM
2 Recommendations

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SOURCES:

1) News releases and other material of Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany.

2) External Sources: Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and a series of newspapers from Germany, U.K., France, Canada and Japan.

2) Own Sources: My own research for previous publishing projects like TTT of Comlab Corp and others.

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