Review by Cadi Froehlich LG
This year, the spotlight falls on Chemnitz in eastern Germany, where the European Capital of Culture reaches its 40th year. The initiative continues its focus on supporting, nurturing, and celebrating the cultural landscape and possibilities in a city that needs a bit of encouragement.
Chemnitz is sometimes called the Manchester of the East – a former industrial powerhouse which founded grand architecture and drove infrastructural and population explosions, only for them to be gutted by economic changes and flattened in conflict.
The East German regime renamed it Karl Marx Stadt and invested heavily in housing and manufacture, as the city sits in the Ore Mountains which provided raw materials for industry. However, with the reunification of Germany came not only a return to the old name, but the old socio-economic problems suffered by most industries in the East.
In recent years, Chemnitz’s population has begun to grow again, bolstered by huge numbers of refugees alongside folk from the surrounding region. The architectural heritage is being reshaped as much as the community itself.
In this context, the European Capital of Culture initiative has picked a brilliant city to support this year.
I visited in February, shortly after the launch event, when the weather was still frosty and only about 60% of the events had begun. There is an easily accessible visitor centre with lots of info including maps, leaflets and the printed catalogue. I found these essential as the website was still being updated, and it wasn’t very easy to work out the whats/wheres/whens…
Map in hand we started at the famous HUGE statue to Karl Marx himself, which is one of the largest bronzes I have ever seen. This sets the tone, as he looks over to 3 classic eras of architecture- the ancient Red Tower from the old city wall, the towering DDR housing blocks, and the more contemporary city hall.
From there, we were easily able to find the first of many photographs featured in the project #3000Garages: in a city with dense blocks of housing, there are an estimated 30,000 garages. These are not just used to store cars, they are workshops, dens, storage units and studios. They are fairly standard in appearance—rows of doors facing each other, and became important places to gather, grill, tinker or just hang out away from the small inside spaces of the apartments. Car ownership wasn’t even a massive thing during the DDR: folk maybe had mopeds, but they also had sports equipment, used hand tools to fix things, and enjoyed the barbecue culture of Germany, all of which needed to be stored somewhere. So the garages are loved.
The #3000Garages project worked with occupants to capture the lives lived around them. Subjects proudly display the den, the workbench, the vehicle or just have a party, and we get a glimpse of these lives in photos which are on display in local windows, businesses and community centres. You come across them as you move around the city. Not only does this give me the feeling of inclusion, of being welcomed by the occupants, but more importantly, it engages the people themselves, and all their neighbours. You get the sense that no matter where they live or moved here from, they find community at the garages, and they get to be out in the open, and they get included. Building the community is one of the key aims of the ECoC program, and the garages is a great place to start an art project about inclusivity, involvement and engagement, drawing everyone involved a little closer together.
The photos of the garages lined our route to the fountain sculpture ‘Manifold’ by Daniel Widrig. This was dry, as all the fountains are drained due to the freezing temperatures, but it was still freely accessible to move around.
The next highlight was ‘Schalen’ (dishes) by Yeun-Jae Lee. 49 huge handmade dishes are presented in a square formation in the nave of an old church. The regularity of the pieces and the quiet of the space soon allow time for quiet reflection, and the handmade qualities of the individual bowls start to emerge; tiny variations in colour, form, finish, slow progressions of tone, lustre and finish. The effort involved in hefting these heavy forms is visible. The regularity of the presentation highlights these differences, and the scale of them is important – they hold their own in such a cavernous space.
Moving around the city in the open air again, we found Osmar Ostens ‘Oben-mit’ (above-together) which consists of columns of stone sourced from the local Ore mountains which make a group that support aluminium casts (again a local material). The forms reference the familiar traditional miners/makers of the region, and the fine finish of the columns contrasts with the visible cast marks left around the figures. No finishing off, totally honest presentation of the labour involved in the creation of the sculpture and therefore an undeniable proof of the humans involved in the manufacture.
The last associated artwork we saw was at the Industrie Museum, where a score by John Cage is used to create the exhibition MuseumCircle. Gathered in one space are items not only from the museum itself, but also from 38 other museums in the region, each of whose curators have selected what to include. The seemingly random juxtaposition of industrial machinery, fine ceramics, costume and taxidermy starts to form a narrative of the skills and interests around the region. The industry and crafting skills which folk valued and preserved, the everyday objects that supported their labours, and the technical mastery of their combined efforts make the space feel intimate and inclusive at the same time.
This inclusion of the human elements, like the stone installation, the Schale and the #3000Garages, really represents the aim of the ECoC program: Studies have shown that the selected host cities experience an increase in visitor numbers and also local engagement through involvement in programs as subjects or volunteers, along with a more positive feeling about the city on a much larger scale. *
I can only hope that the UK will continue this program, and very much look forward to to visiting Bradford, our city of culture 2025.
Beyond the city of Chemnitz itself, the whole county hosts an open air sculpture trail called the Purple Path. Highlights we found included the huge painted chimney of the old power station, installed by Daniel Buren, and the human-sized porcelain vessels by Uli Aigner ‘One Million Item 3501 and 3502’ (this was also unfortunately under wraps against the cold – but I will revisit in the sunshine later in the year!).
The city itself is small enough to be able to see most things on foot, and it’s also mostly flat. Buses and trams are regular but you need to buy tickets in newsagents or download the app to pay. Accommodation and food out is affordable and plentiful, with delicious offerings from around the world. Chemnitz is a great base for exploring the region more widely, so if you fancy a trip east, I can highly recommend it!
Cadi Froehlich LG, 2025
