Ulrich John's photos

Documenta 2017: Antonio Vega Macotela ( Mexiko ): The Mill of Blood - A replica of a coin minting machine used by Spanish settlers in the gold and silver mines of Potosi ( Bolivia ). The wheels were pushed by animals or slaves. The installation will show how economic value was produced in the colonial era. And show as a sample what still happens in the relationship of rich and poor countries to raise the wealth of the 'First World'.

Please see it Large on Black - Documenta 2017: The picture shows a detail of the digital video work 'Atlas Fractured' by Theo Eshetu ( GB )

HFF everybody everywhere ! A nice Friday with the News from IMA this week ! Ipernity is still alive ! Thanks to all who stayed here patiently and to all returnees. Have a great Friday and a good weekend. , The picture shows the Orangerie in Kassel.

Documenta 2017: Cecilia Vicuña ( Chile ); Quipu Womb - The Story of the red Thread ( Die Geschichte des roten Fadens ). A 'soft sculpture ' made of rough red-dyed wool. Vicuña calls her installations 'three dimensional poems' or quipoems: an artificial item build of the words poem and quipu. Quipu terms a construct of strings and knots which served in old Peru to communicate. " A language made of talking knots. " Words move from language to language, from culture to culture, from mouth to mouth". Language connects all people

Documenta 2017: Maret Anne Sara, Pile o Sapmi - A curtain made of 300 reindeer skulls. Sara is both: artist and political activist. She belongs to the people of Sami, an indigenous Finno-Ugric people living in northern Scandinavia. The installation intends to remind viewers on the struggle against the Norwegian government's culling of reindeers and disrespect of indigenous traditions. The reindeer is for the Sami an important part of their symbiotic way of living with the environment and their cultural identity. This curtain is also a reference to the Pile o' Bones in North American colonial history when the government extinguished the buffalos to get the indigenous people to leave their country.

Documenta 2017: Daniel Knorr: Expiration Movement - White smoke from the Zwehrenturm - every day during the time of the exhibition. The artist intends to remind viewers of the Nazi's burning of books and the crematoriums of the concentration camps. "But smoke is also a sign of freedom" he says

Aboubakar Fofana ( Mali ): Natural fiber-based textiles, handsewn and dyed in organic indigo in Bamako and Athens as a symbol for working in harmony with the forces of nature. His indigo textiles are alive: they contain only few of ingredient and no chemicals. " For Fofana, the natural worldalong with our own ability is where we began, and it is how we finish."

Guillermo Galinda ( Mexiko ): Fluchtzieleuropahavarieschallkörper Some kind of instrument build of wreckage from the Mediterranean Sea where many people, most of them from Syria, died in the attempt to get from Turkey to Greece by small and ruined boats.

The picture shows the Parthenon of Books. It's build as a replica of the temple on the Acropolis in Athens. The pillars are filled with more than 50 000 books from all over the world which had been banned formerly or are forbidden currently. The number of books should grow during the time of the exhibition. The work is situated on the Friedrichsplatz in Kassel where May, 19th 1933 the Nazis burned a lot of books during the so-called ' Campaign against the Un-German spirit'. It's a symbol of resistance to any banning of books and the persecution of their authors.