Saturday 4 August 2007

Last Week at Wilhelmshöhe
















Last Week at Wilhelmshöhe
QuickTime Movie 5.1Mb 3' 03"

4 comments:

Dubdog said...

This is getting to be a bit like random stalking.

Steven Ball said...

Surely stalking is by definition not random due to its obsession usually with a single person or very specific group or type of people. This, brother, is anthropology! (Although perhaps that's just another word for random stalking after all)

SAM RENSEIW said...

The grass always seems greener and more attractive at the documenta :-) wish I was there flaneuring around. ( maybe I'll make it till september.)

Steven Ball said...

I have mixed feelings about it, partly due to going straight to Venice afterwards so rather overloaded and still trying to extricate some sensible impressions. I think it's quite complex this year, a lot more personal/subjective, still 'political' but less cohesive, for better and/or worse.

The exhibition at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe is small and tight, the most focussed, a real interesting mix of the ancient, the historical, the modern and the contemporary.

But I was impressed by the building and mostly the park. We went for a long walk up to the Herkules monument which is the peak (literally) of an amazing 1km or so of the Bergpark landscaped waterfall gardens with strange gazebos, aquaducts, temples, paths and bridges. It was the site for some rather uninteresting Shipwreck series of large billboard photos and sculptural installation, the artist's name eludes me and the setting pretty much overwhelmed any impact it might have had. You might know the park and you can catch a glimpse of some of it in the video, but I did voodle away on our long sunburn inducing walk up and down the hill, which might manifest itself publicly some time in the future. I know nothing of the history of this place but I imagine it has some kind of German imperial history, the location is so deliberate, from the building one can see the long straight Wilhelmshöhe Allee (upon which our hotel was located) clearly constructed as long straight road into Kassel and the way Wilhelmshöhe sits above the city, quietly dominating it from a distance.