"Landkreisspitzen": First exhibition of caricaturist Reiner Behrends in the city museum

Created: 12/22/2022, 4:00 p.m

By: Boris Forstner

More than 80 caricatures that have already appeared in the Weilheimer Tagblatt are on display in the exhibition by Reiner Behrends (2nd from right) in the Stadtmuseum.

Also present at the vernissage were (from left) museum director Tobias Güthner, deputy mayor Angelika Flock, district administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß and editor-in-chief Boris Forstner.

© EMANUEL GRONAU

Reiner Behrends has been drawing a caricature for the local newspaper every Saturday for more than a year and a half.

Now he is presenting his more than 80 works to date in an exhibition.

Weilheim – The request came by email.

It was around Easter 2021 when Reiner Behrends asked the local newspaper whether they needed a cartoonist.

After one or two phone calls and the first tests, everything was clear – since then the drawings by the 54-year-old from Tutzing have been a highlight of every weekend issue of Weilheimer Tagblatt/Penzberger Merkur.

(The local newspapers in the Weilheim-Schongau district are represented on Instagram under “merkur_wm_sog”.)

The best caricatures also work without text

Behrends has now been able to open his first exhibition under the name "Landkreisspitzen" in the Weilheim City Museum, in the presence of numerous friends and relatives.

At first he wanted to make a selection, he said, but then decided to exhibit all the drawings that had been published to date - namely the original drawing together with the newspaper clipping, which usually offers a small explanation on the subject.

While the best cartoons work without text, with local themes, it sometimes helps if the reader is given a brief history.

Two attentive viewers of the caricatures were District Administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß and Weilheim's Deputy Mayor Angelika Flock.

No wonder, since politicians are the natural target of the caricaturists, and the district administrator in particular often found herself a topic when it came to the central hospital, among other things.

Flock also picked this up in her speech, because a caricaturist can deal with a situation in different ways: He can criticize something gently "or use it as a weapon against us".

However, a caricature must always stimulate thought and present a fact in an exaggerated manner.

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Beautification of the underpass in Schützenstrasse in the 1980s

One person suspected early on that Behrends would become an artist: Norbert Balling, his former teacher for drawing and design at the vocational school in Weilheim.

In his laudatory speech, the 78-year-old remembered that Behrends wanted to be a "graphic artist, draftsman, caricaturist" at the age of 17 and thought: "Aha, another one like that." But when it came to the underpass on behalf of the road construction department Behrends was fired up and the only one who had reported to beautify on Schützenstrasse.

"He immediately started planning and had the idea of ​​the city silhouette that can still be seen today," says Balling - unfortunately overshadowed by the inevitable graffiti.

Reiner Behrends left his mark in Weilheim 34 years ago - he was allowed to beautify the underpass on Schützenstrasse.

© private

The painting can still be seen today, unfortunately painted over by graffiti.

© EMANUEL GRONAU

Now, more than 30 years later, he can claim with justification: Behrends kept his word with his artist plans at the time.

And through the caricatures in the local newspaper, contact was made again, which even led to a concrete project: together they created a Oktoberfest poster for next year and applied - it would be really sensational if the old teacher-student relationship would be rewarded with such success.

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And what does the cartoonist say about his exhibition?

"I don't like to talk," he said simply.

He prefers to let his drawings do the talking.

Exhibition "County Heads"

to January 28, 2023, from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Weilheim City Museum

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter.

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