It is a final farewell: Christian Zott has sold the sculpture "Sighting".
The background to this was the recent refusal by the Unterammergau municipal council to establish this permanently.
Unterammergau
– your days are numbered.
The "Sighting", a 32 meter high spatial and sound sculpture, leaves Unterammergau.
Those who have always been upset about the "rusty tower" will be happy.
Others, who have dealt with the work of art more intensively, regret the farewell.
On Thursday, May 4th, dismantling will begin in the garden of the mSE Kunsthalle.
70 tons of steel leave the site.
Forever.
After a permanent installation was ruled out by the Unterammergau municipal council, Christian Zott, the owner of the art gallery, sold the work by Hildegard Rasthofer and Christian Neumaier.
It's extraordinary work.
Anyone who conquered the tower enjoyed a unique view - of the sculpture garden, Unter- and Oberammergau, the Laber, Kofel and Pürschling, the Hörnle, forest and meadows.
When ascending and descending, “every visitor also leaves behind a specific sound pattern, a sound track, through movement in the sculpture,” says Rasthofer.
According to its creators, the work of art should wander to places where there is an exciting interaction with the environment - like in the Ammertal.
Sculpture disturbed village peace
In 2018, the duo first set up their walk-in sculpture in Reithofen in the Erding district.
Zott also became aware of this.
The entrepreneur, collector and initiator of art projects supported the second installation in Munich's creative district and bought the work for the sculpture garden of his newly built museum.
His intention: to create an "artistically valuable attraction" for Unterammergau.
For this he received a lot of encouragement.
"Placing pictorial works in the landscape, letting them work in nature has been a major task of art since ancient times," explained Professor Dr.
Raimund Wunsch, former director of the Glyptothek and the State Collections of Antiquities in Munich, on a visit to the Ammer Valley.
Such also refers to the uniqueness and size of nature.
No permanent residence allowed
For the opening of the Kunsthalle and the Lartor Resort, the "Sighting" found its third location in Unterammergau in autumn 2019.
However, when Zott applied for permanent permission for the work, a heated argument ensued.
"The narrow sculpture with a base area of 2.4 by 2.4 meters was perceived as monstrous, the metal surface, which, depending on the lighting mood and weather, approximates the colors of the landscape, was cursed as an industrial chimney," he recalls.
Attacks denounced as narrow-minded by many defenders of the plant.
Since the peace in the village seemed to be severely disturbed, the "sighting" was dismantled.
In accordance with the artist's intention, she awarded Zott.
The Flossenbürg concentration camp memorial in the Upper Palatinate thus marked a space of thought, explicitly not a memorial space, which was widely appreciated.
On the occasion of the Oberammergau Passion Play 2022, for which the Kunsthalle set up a sculpture path, the "sighting" returned - temporarily - to Unterammergau.
Zott then applied for a permanent list, which would have made coordination with other borrowers much easier.
The council refused him that.
Tower moves on
The sighting is now sold.
During dismantling there is the last chance to marvel not only at the artistic but also at the engineering achievement.
The 13 steel cubes of the sculpture are stacked and screwed together.
They can be set up or taken down in one day.
The seemingly simple construction requires the highest level of precision, because errors and inaccuracies are immediately noticeable.
The realization of such a bold vision is what fascinates Zott about the sculpture to this day.
"The concept is the interesting thing about every idea," he emphasizes.
Consequently, it is important to think about it in every context and detail until it can become a reality.
"This principle, which was always decisive for me as an entrepreneur, can also apply to artistic visions," explains the collector.
"The 'Sighting' embodies the triumph of the conception in a literally outstanding way." Now she's moving on - "to new places".
