The obelisk by Nigerian-American artist Olu Oguibe was one of the most popular and controversial works at Documenta 14 in Kassel. In the fall of 2018, it caused a nationwide stir due to the political and public dispute surrounding its location, which escalated to the point where, on October 3rd – the Day of German Unity – the city administration removed the massive artwork in a sudden, covert operation. My task was to resolve this conflict.
“The Monument for Strangers and Refugees” features a quote from the Bible (Matthew Gospel) on its four sides in four languages: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” The shape of the obelisk gives this message a timeless, cross-cultural form. The work, produced with great care by Documenta, was installed in June 2017 at Kassel’s Königsplatz. The city of Kassel awarded Olu Oguibe the Arnold Bode Prize for the work, and it was among the works at Documenta whose potential purchase and permanent installation in the city had been considered from the start.
What happened next, I quote from Wikipedia:
“Initially, the obelisk was well-received by many citizens, while others rejected it for aesthetic or political reasons. The controversy in Kassel gradually intensified, turning into a climate of hostility toward the artist. AfD city council member Thomas Materner called the obelisk ‘ideological and distorting art’ in the city’s Cultural Committee in 2017. The following year, he threatened to hold protests if Oguibe came to Kassel. Supporters of the monument, including former Kassel mayor Hans Eichel, demonstrated in the summer of 2018 for the obelisk to remain in the city.
Whether the obelisk would remain in Kassel was unclear for a long time. To facilitate the purchase of the artwork, Kassel’s cultural affairs commissioner, Susanne Völker, launched a fundraising campaign in February 2018, raising 126,000 euros. The artist agreed to this amount, although it was significantly lower than the one million originally considered or the 600,000 euros aimed for after the completion of Documenta.
The question of the obelisk’s permanence became a political issue in Kassel’s town hall, as a majority of the city council rejected the location the artist had requested on Königsplatz. Further negotiations with Oguibe briefly suggested a compromise. One idea was to relocate the obelisk to a new site, perhaps in front of a still-to-be-built Documenta Institute. As the city insisted on its decision not to keep the monument on Königsplatz, and the artist continued to insist that the work had been specifically created for this location, the city of Kassel removed the memorial early on the morning of October 3, 2018, after the lease term had expired, in an unannounced action without the knowledge of the cultural commissioner. It was stored at a building yard. The action, overseen by Kassel Mayor Christian Geselle (SPD), was sharply criticized by some and praised by others, with supporters from both sides often viewing it as a victory for the AfD.
Contrary to his previous stance, Oguibe subsequently agreed in writing to the relocation of the obelisk to the new site proposed by the city, in his own words, in order to preserve the artwork for Kassel. On October 11, 2018, the city of Kassel announced that the obelisk would be reinstalled on Treppenstraße and permanently remain there. On April 18, 2019, the artwork was erected at that location.”
Since then, the 16.20-meter-tall “Monument for Strangers and Refugees” has stood prominently in a central square on Kassel’s Treppenstraße. That this is the case is my contribution to Documenta 14. Of course, only those who were involved know this. I learned a tremendous amount during this process, particularly about public pressure, dubious political calculation, strategic press work, and artist coaching.