Tourists crowd for photos at waterfalls with 750,000 liters of water in Germany

An eight-meter statue of naked Hercules watches from the top of a mountain as hordes of tourists arrive in the small town of Kassel, in central Germany, to visit the largest art exhibition on the planet, Documenta, which takes place every five years. .

It would not be necessary, however, for there to be a contemporary art show for visitors to immerse themselves in works of art there, in the city with 200,000 inhabitants 200 km from Frankfurt.

Over 300 years old, the naked Hercules is part of a colossal Baroque monument that helped place Kassel’s main park, Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark, on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

The greenish copper statue is installed on top of a 30-meter pyramid and below a stone staircase structure that, when activated, transforms into a series of 350-meter waterfalls.

And the show doesn’t stop there. The 750,000 liters of water needed to form the waterfalls flow to four other structures in the 560-hectare park, in a natural pressure system created three centuries ago. The reservoirs and pipelines are underground, and the locks are manually opened.

The Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark water circuit takes place only twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, and only in the warmest months of the year, from May to October. Although not part of Documenta’s official program, the park instills a spirit of collectivity dear to the curators of this 15th edition of the show, an Indonesian collective that invited other art groups to take over Kassel’s galleries and public spaces.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in June, a crowd was waiting at the sides of Hercules’ stairs. Punctually at 2:30 pm, the first lines of water began to appear, passing through a grotto, forming small waterfalls and finally turning into an abundant torrent down the stairs.

After the general ecstasy recorded in photographs and selfies, punctuated by awkward security guards preventing tourists from jumping into the waters, the people moved in unison towards the next structure, along a path of wooded trails in the park.

At 15:05, there was the agglomeration again, this time waiting for the formation of the artificial waterfall Steinhöfer. The same was repeated 15 minutes later at Ponte do Diabo, and ten minutes later at the Aqueduct, with a 30-meter waterfall.

At 3:45 pm, to end the 2.3 km route, a 50-meter jet burst into the park’s castle pond, taking the unsuspecting by surprise. The artificial geyser was the tallest in the world when it was built in 1767.

The structures, which are connected for just ten minutes, began to be built in the late 17th century by Karl I von Hessen-Kassel and completed in the following centuries by his great-grandson. Such architectural sophistication cemented the family’s power in the region, subjugating the power of the waters in a great exhibitionist feat.

Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark also houses a palace built from 1786 onwards. Used by Prussian kings and German emperors in the past, today it is open to the public with a collection of 17th century master paintings and sculptures from Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

There is also the castle of Löwenburg, raised a little later and one of the first to imitate the ruins of medieval castles. The site had parts destroyed in World War II and is currently undergoing restorations with no completion date.

More than 60% of Kassel is covered in green areas, with more parks and gardens to be explored. Karlsaue State Park is located in the center of the city and is home to some Documenta installations, as well as an artificial island called Siebenbergen, home to a careful garden full of native flowers, exotic species from around the world and some peacocks (entry 3 euros) .

For those visiting Kassel outside the Documenta season, which ends after 100 days on September 25, there are historical works from previous editions that have become permanent.

An example is the “Vertical Earth Kilometer”, made by Walter De Maria (1935-2013) in 1977: it is a one kilometer long bar stuck vertically in the earth, with only the surface of the tip 5 cm in diameter to the shows on the floor.

It takes patience to find the work, hidden under the sand and people walking on it without paying attention.

The work is in the square in front of the Fridericianum museum, Documenta’s main space. There are also two of the 7,000 trees planted by volunteers over the five years since Documenta in 1982, part of Joseph Beuys’ (1921-1986) land art project “7000 Oaks”.