The work of the Albanian artist Sead KAZANXHIU has been uploaded on the wall Fridericianum in Kassel.
The huge nest installations serve as metaphors for those who have talked about cultures marginalized on the fringes of our society.
The new Kassel version of Ilona Németh’s Floating Gardens (2011) project is based on the concept of the Healing and Future Gardens floating on the Fulda River and is presented as part of the What Ifs and Why Nots project.
With the call published in the documenta fifteen’s newsletter, we are waiting for applications from those who take care of the gardens for 100 days during the documenta.
Ilona Németh is an artist, organizer, and curator based in Slovakia. lumbung member OFF-Biennale Budapest invited her to participate in documenta fifteen. Németh’s artistic contribution The Floating Gardens revolves around her main interests: active interaction between a work and its viewers, and the dialogue between nature and society.
Two floating objects from polypropylene serve as islands for the two gardens, which are 3.5 by 4.5 meters in size each. They float on the Fulda River at Bootsverleih Ahoi from Wednesday, June 15 until Sunday, September 30, 2022. Németh created the first version of the floating gardens in 2011 in Hungary, Budapest, applying two remarkable examples from the history of garden design: the French and the English style.
The floating gardens are available to rent for free!
For documenta fifteen Németh reuses the floating objects from 2011 and transforms them into the Future Garden and the Healing Garden. In The Future Garden grow plants that clean the soil of certain toxic substances and plants that have adapted to the recent weather changes caused by climate change. The Healing Garden consists of herbs and vegetables which benefit from each other’s company. Each garden needs another kind of care, because the plants are different and the rules of their coexistence are not identical either. Each garden is an ecosystem. Its maintenance requires cooperation between the carer and the cared for.
The two small gardens (the Future Garden and the Healing Garden) on the Fulda River at Bootsverleih Ahoi in Kassel are to rent for free from Wednesday, June 15 until Sunday, September 30, 2022.
The gardeners take care of the floating gardens during documenta fifteen by keeping the plants, the shapes, and the concepts of the gardens while enjoying the benefits of having and maintaining these particular garden-islands.
Tamás Péli’s painting Birth was first shown to the public last summer at the Budapest History Museum in the frame of the third OFF-BIennale Budapest. Thanks to the dedicated work of many people, the painting’s story continues – and now it’s about to get a real big launch! The painting has arrived in Kassel as one of the highlights of documenta fifteen! The Fridericianum, the first museum building at the European continent will host the painting from now on!
We are proud to announce that after being featured on Art Review’s prominent ‘Power 100’ list, as founder and co-curator of OFF Biennale, Hajnalka Somogyi has been included in the Forbes 2021 list of the ‘Most Influential Hungarian Women’. As the project leader of Central Europe’s largest independent art event, Hajni is one of the well-known figures of culture who have been selected to be part of documenta’s responsible team for its 15th edition in the summer of 2022.
Cover: Elle Hungary/Ajkai Dávid, 2021
There is no exhibition of contemporary art more important than documenta, which is recognised globally as the world’s most prestigious cultural event. The internationally renowned event is held every five years in Kassel, Germany. The recently announced fifteenth documenta in 2022 will include OFF Biennale Budapest among its participants. This year, Ruangrupa – a Jakarta-based artist collective founded in the early 2000s – is responsible for the curatorial concept of the world art exhibition.
Cover: ruangrupa: lumbung members handlettering image: Indra Ameng, 2020