Bernd Zimmer's art column project Stoa 169 in Polling near Weilheim can be explored from September 15th - in the middle of nature on the banks of the Ammer.
+
Bernd Zimmer by the column he painted.
© Photo: Oliver Bodmer
The wiry man with snow-white hair carries - vertically - up a huge ladder as if it were nothing.
And before the visitor has blinked twice, he stands on one of the top rungs and quickly and accurately mends a missing spot on Mimmo Paladino's (Italy) column, whose black drums and white lines stagger moderately like a trained drinker.
The quirk at the top, almost under the roof, would never have been discovered by a visitor to this portico.
And already we are at two central points: the painter Bernd Zimmer (72) and his column project Stoa 169 near Polling, not far from Weilheim.
The man is Bavarian, but his idea has little to do with the Bavarian Stoa, although some Stoana can be found in his Stoa, whether as pebbles or as relief material.
The ancient Greek entrance hall Stoa, which gave its name to a philosophical direction (cosmos - human being - reason), made the impression that the South Indian temples had left with him around 30 years ago.
The variety of the pillars fascinated the artist, who at the time was one of the young and wild ones.
He wanted to establish something in his home country that celebrates diversity, art and its global interplay.
“That is our educational mandate,” says the Stoic Father, smiling gently.
Then: "But no, we don't have an order!"
+
The pillared hall is embedded in nature.
© Photo: Oliver Bodmer
Be that as it may, Bernd Zimmer met him.
Even against resistance from the locality, which can now hardly be heard, explains project spokesman Gerald Meier.
Even skeptics would be happy about the works of art.
No wonder, because the first phase of construction is finished down to the smallest details.
The hall, which has no walls, can be visited from next Tuesday.
And most of the 121 pillars are ready to be admired.
Only those that mark the diagonal will be gradually designed by art students over the next few years.
The pillar of the Munich class Rosenkranz can already be seen, a puzzling lattice construction;
The art school in Chicago will follow in 2021.
While you are pondering this transparent "bin", Zimmer is on the phone with colleague Karin Kneffel.
Your painting in refined green-brown tones with bubbles was placed around the column shaft the day before.
“The edges still have to be painted over,” the painter speaks into the cell phone.
And reassuring to the rapporteur - although she is not worried: "She has the colors, it will work tomorrow." Certainly, because Zimmer has everything, really everything, in view.
And one realizes that what Sisyphean work must be is not for him.
With a grin: "Nobody thought I could do that."
+
Kwame Akoto-Bamfo from Ghana is reminiscent of slavery.
© Photo: Oliver Bodmer
Who do you trust such a realization?
Encourage artists from all over the world to take part, to deal with the column shape, to be one of many without any preferred place for the work, which is also exposed to wind and weather.
Authorities and neighbors in the village, donors (especially the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne and the Bavarian Culture Fund) and conservationists as well as craftsmen and the public are convincing.
In the course of the long planning and re-planning, the basic square - “perfection developed by man” - has shrunk from 13 to 13 meters (169 columns) to eleven by eleven meters (121 columns).
So less of the meadow at the Ammerschleife had to be built on.
There are also open squares in the roof and in the floor.
"The building is permeable," says Zimmer happily, "that's a pantheon feeling".
The painter has it not with the gods, but with the people: “With this I thank the world,” he says and draws you to a certain pillar.
It is quite inconspicuous, only covered with names.
“That is civil society.
Jochen Gerz has listed all the names of the people who have helped with Stoa, from excavator drivers to artists. ”Not far away, a pillar full of shiny steel dishes.
The Indian Subodh Gupta, born in 1964, was enthusiastic about "modern" objects as a child.
With these banal objects for Stoa he created a cheeky, ostentatious, vase-like thing that shimmers in gold and silver.
Margaret Baragurra from Australia also has to do with thoughts of home and childhood.
Her blue, red, and white painted strut quotes the religion / art of the West Australian indigenous peoples with dots.
“Kaljarri” is a - for us illegible - landscape painting of the desert region after the rain;
so fits perfectly into the meadows of Bavaria.
+
Margaret Baragurras paints in the traditional manner of the West Australian Aborigines.
© Photo: Oliver Bodmer
These three works alone give an idea of the range of works.
The materials range from oil paint and photography to wood - preferably as a whole tree trunk -, glass, ceramics, metal, bones, plastic, stone, clay, plaster, mosaic, hemp, plaster, electrical wire, paper and brick.
Naturally, the sculptural predominates in the hall.
The brick pillar (Jan Svenungsson, Sweden) swings in the hips like a hula hoop dancer.
Yorgos Sapountzis (Greece) shows a disdainful shell construction mess, while Bavarian Nikolaus Lang erects a memorial to the Indian children Miranha and Juri, who were abducted from Brazil to Bavaria in the 19th century.
Finds are also used for the three-dimensional.
In Kyrgyzstan, chuko is played with the knee joint of a cow.
A Murnau butcher has therefore collected bones for Polling, which Shaarbek Amankul has combined to form a column;
which inevitably reminds of our own backbone.
The masses of plastic bottles belonging to the American Willie Cole, who transported pictures of the Madonna to Polling (monastery!) In his message in a bottle, are less natural.
And the Swiss Roman Signer simply lets a kayak practice the steep ascent.
“There's something for everyone,” asks Bernd Zimmer, and you have to agree.
The audience can smile at Erwin Wurm's beloved Gurke (Austria), can dream of the South Seas with a tiki by Maheatete Huhina, can fly into space with Zimmer's painting or get to know an ancient building material with Hannsjörg Voth's rammed earth, which is currently in fashion again.
Bernd Zimmer has succeeded in creating the Hall of Art Democracy in a wonderfully cheerful manner, although the “slab” architecture of the building itself is bland.
But if visitors wander through the colorful pillar forest, that is forgotten.
Grandmaster Katharina Sieverding gives the best food for thought with her writing column: "Every explanation is a hypothesis".
This is also the best tip on how to approach this rural-global work of art: completely relaxed.
After all, the central pillar is dedicated to all of us - it is a mirror.
The Hall Stoa 169
on the Ammer near Polling (near Weilheim) is accessible from September 15th;
it can only be reached on foot - a nice walk (signposted path);
The area is ideal for cyclists;
There is a good, illustrated brochure by the plant;
more information at stoa169.com.
“Tikimania”: The exhibition in the Munich Museum Five Continents with paintings by Bernd Zimmer and Tikis, South Seas sculptures, runs until February 21, 2021, Tuesday-Sunday.
9.30 a.m.-5.30 p.m.