Marta Minujín

Marta Minujín 1960

Marta Minujín at the “La Menesunda” exhibition, 1965

Marta Minujín, 2008

The Parthenon of Books next to the Fridericianum

Marta Minujín (born January 30, 1943 in Buenos Aires ) is an Argentine conceptual artist . She works mainly in the areas of soft sculpture , happening , performance and video .

life and work

Minujín studied art from 1953 to 1959 at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano and from 1960 to 1961 art education at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes . In 1961 she was one of the Argentine participants in the Paris Biennale . From 1962 to 1963 a scholarship made Minujín possible for a longer stay in Paris. In 1966 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and moved to New York City , where she immersed herself in psychedelic art and hippie culture . In 1976, during the Argentine military dictatorship , she returned to her home country.

Minujín realized “The Parthenon of Books” (1983) on December 19th (one week after the 1983 presidential elections) on Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires. The work consisted of a structure in the shape of a temple that was fifteen meters wide, thirty meters long and twelve meters high. More than 20,000 books covered the columns , friezes and gables . Minujín chose books that were banned during the Argentine military regime (1976-1983).

For documenta 14 (2017), in collaboration with the University of Kassel , the Frankfurt Book Fair and many others, the “Parthenon of Books” was created, which was intended as a sign against the prohibition of texts. It is the original size of the ancient Greek temple on the Acropolis in Athens , which aesthetically and politically represents the ideal of the first democracy . “Up to 100,000 once or currently banned books from all over the world are needed for the realization of the work on the Kassel Friedrichsplatz , where on May 19, 1933 in the course of the so-called 'Action against the un-German spirit' around 2,000 books by the Nazis were burned. In 1941 the Fridericianum - which at that time was still used as a library - caught fire during an Allied bombing raid and a book inventory of around 350,000 volumes was lost. "

Exhibitions (selection)

1983: 17th São Paulo Biennial , São Paulo
1986: 42nd Biennale di Venezia , Venice
1986: 6th Biennale of Sydney : Origins, Originality + Beyond, Sydney
1999: 2nd Bienal do Mercosul , Porto Alegre
2010: 29th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo
2011: 3rd Bienal del Fin del Mundo, Buenos Aires
2013: 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre
2014: Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today , Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , New York City
2015: Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980 , Museum of Modern Art , New York City, NY
2016: 1957-1975 , Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (Seville) , Seville
2017: The Partenon of Books , documenta 14 , Kassel