2023-09-21 14:15:58
Cultural patronage in Germany
How to step into Rodin’s shoes
Status: 21.09.2023 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Asta Gröting, “A Citizen of Calais/The Feet of Eustache de Saint Pierre”
Source: Jens Ziehe/© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
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Art collector Bettina Böhm’s Leap Society wants to boost the somewhat sluggish patronage system in Germany and help cash-strapped museums. She has now set herself a goal of 1.5 million euros in a single auction. But what do you have to be able to offer in order to be successful?
Towards the end of the Hundred Years’ War (1337 to 1453), in which English kings wanted to assert their claims to the French throne, troops of Edward III besieged. For almost a year, the French port city of Calais, which showed no signs of surrendering despite unbearable conditions. On the advice of the city’s most influential citizen, Eustache de Saint Pierre, they decided to surrender in order to prevent looting and destruction.
As a tribute, the English king demanded that six honorable citizens step outside the city barefoot, in penitential robes, with a rope around their necks, and hand him the city keys. We’ll see what happens next, but the death sentence seemed certain. The queen, overwhelmed by the courage and penitence of the six citizens, intervened – and the martyrs, who were ready for certain death, survived.
In the 1880s, Auguste Rodin created the famous, early expressionist monument on behalf of the city of Calais, which depicts the six doomed citizens in their isolation and, in individualizing their pain, fear and despair, reflects the heroic aspect of a historical monumental sculpture that was common up to that point waived.
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Only the arrangement of the figures – Eustache de Saint Pierre in the middle, literally surrounded by the five other victims – refers to the hierarchical unity of the now hopeless decision. The monument was unveiled in 1895.
Bravest of the brave
Asta Gröting (born 1961 in Herford) is a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig with international exhibition practice as an artist. For her 2015 sculpture “A Citizen of Calais/The Feet of Eustache de Saint Pierre,” she took casts of Rodin’s sculpture—one in bronze, the other in aluminum. But the bravest of the brave is only apparently absent.
His oversized feet are a reminder of steadfastness, strength and courage, of social responsibility that goes beyond one’s own sensitivities. They are a tribute to the community. Not least because there are shiny sneakers hidden inside them, protected and almost hidden. Symbolically charged, because the sneakers also remind us that it will be challenging to follow in these footsteps. However, it would be worth the try.
Leap Society promotes acquisitions by museums
Asta Gröting’s Edition (copy 4 from an edition of 5 plus 2) is now being offered at auction. With an estimated price of 46,000 euros, the work is in one Benefit auction at the Langen Foundation in Neuss (on September 23, 2023). It is organized by Leap, an organization dedicated to promoting cultural and art projects.
Philanthropic art historian and collector Bettina Böhm founded the Leap Society in 2021 after years of service to the international charity Outset. At a time when public institution budgets are shrinking, such ventures are of great value.
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In the auction, 38 lots, mostly in the mid-five-figure price range, will go under the hammer. These include works by Julian Charrière, Tony Cragg, Anne Imhof, Katharina Grosse, Thomas Ruff and Julian Rosefeldt. Half of the proceeds go to the art projects supported by Leap, the other half goes to the artists who submitted works.
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