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Kalpana Sunder
Organic food shops, vintage boutiques, trendy clubs, art and antiques. Walls covered in graffiti, gritty Brutalist buildings of concrete, interspersed with Baroque beauties with inner courtyards, walking through the alternative quarter of Nauwieser Viertel, in Saarbrucken, Germany, is a sensory experience. Once this was full of dilapidated houses, today it’s a revitalised neighbourhood. The Max Ophuls Square full of linden trees has men playing a game of petanque, reminiscent of France. After all, France is only a spitting distance away!
Saarbrucken, the capital of the largest state in Germany called Saarland, is as big as Luxembourg, and has been part of Germany, Prussia and France down the ages. It’s a city formed by the unification of three smaller villages, St Johann, Saarbrucken and Malastatt Burbach, about 100 years ago. During World War II, the city like many other towns in Germany was heavily bombed. Baroque town houses and stately churches, squares and gardens designed by the prolific court architect called Freidrich Stengel, under King Wilhelm Heinrich, who ruled from 1718 still survive.
Once the hub of coal trade, Saarbrucken has developed into a cultural hub for art, theatre and music. Everything in the town points to its artistic sensibilities — from pieces of polished rocks that lie strewn across town acting as benches, leftovers from a rock-cutting competition to the modern stained glass windows at the 15th Century Castle Church, designed by George Meistermann.
A large art mural project was unveiled here to revitalise the town, and many of the streets were turned into open-air art galleries with gargantuan murals gracing the side of buildings. Sixteen artists from eight countries have created colourful murals called the Art Walk Saarbrucken. From Spanish artist Aryz’s mural of huge oranges and bones, Russian artist Alexey Luka’s distinctive graffiti with geometric designs and abstract shapes to Cone the Weird’s black and white murals influenced by comics, this is international street art that makes an impact.
The Modern Gallery of the Saarland Museum deserves a visit too, housing one of the largest collections of art in the region. There are both permanent and temporary collections housed in a minimalistic building of glass and stone, where the stage for the art is as spectacular as the art it houses. The lawns and trees outside merge with the inside through the glass doors. Frankfurt-based artist Michael Riedel has added a typographic artwork on the floor outside the museum that documents the debates about the building of the museum itself!
The art displayed by the gallery is that which provokes thought and contemplation, ranging from art made by the artist driving a drilling machine over paper attached to walls to one made with acacia spines.One of the museum’s stars is the ‘Blue Horse’ a painting in bold colours by artist Franz Marc in 1912, that marked an important change in German art. Hamburg-based artist artist Jonathan Meese’s stunning wall to wall painting ‘Love like Blood’ is full of symbols, graffiti, bright colours slathered and splashed across the canvas, and political messages that spell rebellion.
Italian artist Giuseppe Penone’s work is showcased at the museum — he is known for his work that unites art and nature, with large-scale sculptures of trees. His installation of 9-metre-long silver fir beams, in the museum’s atrium, which reveal the tree’s structure hidden inside, is stunning. Another of his installations Corteccia from 1983 uses terracotta, bronze, iron and wood and shows broken fragments placed near busts of children.
One of the town’s most moving art installations is in front of the Schloss or castle, designed by artist Jochen Gerz.This is a unique memorial created in 1993, by art students against racism. 2,146 flagstones on the way to the castle were dug up, and the names of Jewish cemeteries inscribed on the back of them before they were replaced the same way, with the names hidden from sight. An invisible memorial, but powerful!
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