2023-06-23 20:23:00
With the “Work of the Week” the “Freie Presse” presents art in public space. Today: “Death and the Maiden” by Siegfried Otto-Hüttengrund in Hohenstein-Ernstthal (2003).
art in public space.
They have hid themselves a little, in a niche in the passage to the Stadtgarten on the Altmarkt in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, a small park with sculptures that invites you to visit daily from March to October from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Dark Death holds a naked girl in a tight embrace. Death almost takes her, has wrapped her arms and legs. The girl looks down, confused. It is an unexpected and unwelcome encounter that hits it in the middle of life. Perhaps the girl is thinking about the fact that most people are not afraid of death, but are afraid of dying.
Not popular at this time
Old age and death, while ubiquitous, are not exactly popular these days. Although the reference to the “shortage of skilled workers” is often used to refer to the experiences of old age and the demand for longer working lives, otherwise old age and death may be as far away as possible if we are looking for eternal youth, young consumers, young workers. Striving for eternal health, fitness, mobility, flexibility – all the wonderful qualities that make us usable in a world where everything has its value. But Martin Luther already knew: “In the midst of life we are surrounded by death.”
And the motif of the girl and death also has a long history. It has appeared in painting, literature and music since the 16th century, and later also in film. Its origin probably lies in the even older representations of the Dances of Death of the Middle Ages, which arose after devastating plague epidemics, among other things, and tore people of all ages and statuses from life. Depictions of the unequal couple, the fearsome skeleton as a seducer, and his victim, a young woman hungry for life, developed as an independent motif. Matthias Claudius (1740 – 1815) put this contrast into words in a particularly beautiful way: “The girl: Gone! Oh gone! / Go wild bone man! / I’m still young, go dear! / And don’t touch me./ The Death: Give your hand, you beautiful and delicate creature! / I am a friend, and do not come to punish: / Be of good cheer! I am not wild, / You shall sleep softly in my arms.” Claudius takes away the terror of death, in somewhat longer verses he contrasts the girl’s fear with calm and gentleness, thus reconciling life with death. Both are inextricably and inescapably linked.
The fear goes
Siegfried Otto-Hüttengrund’s sculpture created from a 150-year-old oak trunk in 2003 as part of the Garbisdorf Wood Sculptors’ Plein Air also gives an idea of this perspective of reconciliation. The girl is not happy about her encounter with death, but her fear gives way to a certain thoughtfulness. Otto-Hüttengrund has often dealt with the dark side of man in his work – he is known and valued above all for his wood cracks, but also for his contemporary, complex interpretations of classical, non-Christian mythology in paintings and sculptures. Born in 1951 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, in the years when the East German post-war generation still thought the DDR experiment was a real alternative. An alternative that wanted to do without gods of any kind. He is one of many autodidacts who came to art through evening classes, painting circles and working groups. He also brought with him the critical eye of the people who suffered from the realities of real existing socialism because they knew them firsthand.
Weird Welttheater
Having grown up in a country with many restrictions, borders and walls, Siegfried Otto-Hüttengrund refused to follow him at an early age and painted old men instead of young communists. Perhaps that is where the turning to the figures of myths, sagas, and old literature comes from. Just as Christa Wolf put words into the mouth of Cassandra, Franz Fühmann followed Prometheus to the sun, Heiner Müller had Heracles muck out the Augean stables – this is how Siegfried Otto-Hüttengrund’s work brings together fools, death and the devil, murderers and their victims. And instead of one god, there are many gods and goddesses of all times and many religions in his pictures. A bizarre world theatre, in which the actors and actresses from a distant past find themselves as the conscience of mankind, consciously or unconsciously transposed into the present, and often appear quite earthly. Siegfried Otto-Hüttengrund’s characters are committed to a universal humanity as understood by Johann Gottfried Herder, who reproached the individual nations for being a “large, unweeded garden full of weeds and weeds. Who would want to see this gathering place of follies and mistakes as well as excellence and virtues without distinction and … break the spear against other nations?… It is obvious that nature is designed so that like a human being, so also a generation, therefore also a people, learns from and with the other … until finally grasped the difficult lesson: No people are the only people on earth chosen by God; the truth must be sought by everyone, the garden of the common good must be cultivated by everyone.”
Death and the maiden also belong in this garden. The existence of death is also a reminder to people to live in such a way that the “garden of the common good” takes shape more and more.
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