‘The thing on the steps’ and ‘the
lightning on the tower’ are two works of art,
created respectively by Olaf Metzel and Chema Alvargonzález
for kunstprojekte_riem in 2000. Metzel’s sculpture
and Alvargonzález’s light installation
represent only part of the artistic activities initiated
by kunstprojekte_riem, but they have received the greatest
amount of public attention. They mark the entrance to
Messestadt and its future centre and thus announce the
arrival of a new suburb, as intended when they were
commissed. The local and national press reported in
detail on both these works, as well as on the wind,
media and photography projects initiated by kunstprojekte_riem
and on the public discussions organised by it under
the name ‘Riemer Runden’ (Riem forum).
The strongest response to the new art in Messestadt,
however, has come from residents. Even before Alvargonzález’s
piece on the former airport control tower had been
officially ‘opened’ along with other ‘city
markers’, local inhabitants reported in conversation
with the artist how striking the installation was
when dusk begins to fall. They were impressed by the
almost supernatural effect produced by the interplay
of artificial and natural light and welcomed the fact
that the installation could be seen from a long way
off, giving the tower and its old walls a special
place among the new buildings shooting up everywhere.
The combination of warm yellow light and the red brick
of the tower was felt to offer an additional contrast
to the bright white of the surrounding neon lighting.
We have repeatedly been asked to produce documentation
of the wide-ranging reactions of residents to works
initiated by kunstprojekte_riem. These requests have
included proposals for exhibitions of poems, paintings
and photographs produced by local inhabitants.
Reactions to Metzel’s steel piece on the steps
of the U-Bahn station, entitled ‘Nicht mit uns’
(We won’t stand for it), have been quite different,
not least among Messestadt residents. Oscillating
indeterminately between lightness and heaviness, transparency
and solidity, precariousness and stability, the sculpture
got people thinking about what art is or should be.
Members of a Messestadt women’s group, for example,
not only drew up a document of several pages in which
they listed what they thought should be the essential
requirements demanded of works of art; they also created
a work of their own. Using materials found in Messestadt,
they made a round table and decorated it with a mosaic
of tile fragments, pieces of wood and stones. Metzel’s
sculpture thus generated a determined ‘We WILL
stand for it!’ response. That is the title the
women gave their work, which they will later present
to the Protestant church in Messestadt as a baptismal
table. Before artists who have been asked to contribute
to kunstprojekte_riem begin investigating the Messestadt
surroundings, they are given a copy of the women’s
list of features they wish to see in works of art.