When you invite artists to Kassel, they don't want to leave
by Franco Fanelli interviews Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, The Art Newspaper, June
...As well as the traditional venues such as the Friedericianum, the Documenta Haile and the Neue Galerie, I have added an old house built by the Huguenots who fled to Kassel (another example of the exodus/ retreat theme). Theaster Gates, an artist from Chicago, has been living in the past year. He created a similar project in his own city: he bought an old abandoned house during the last financial crisis and restored it using things that others would have thrown away. For example, the University of Chicago, after digitalizing its photographic archive, started throwing away their original plates and negatives: he managed to recover this incredible material. Gates, who is one of only a few Americans in this edition of Documenta - of course there is Lawrence Weiner, who has been present in all of my shows in the past 25 years - will bring some of the materials used to restore the house in Chicago to Kassel, and vice versa....
Related Artists: Theaster Gates