There's a pig right under the studio window.

But only very, very briefly.

Since dogs have recently been brought to art events, even more four-legged visitors are likely to be startled when the pig squeaks through Julian Krause's video.

And a few meters away, huge rat tails are peeping out of a folio that has already been gnawed at quite a bit.

And a performance with "Paul the Dog" is also announced in the accompanying program.

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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In general, living things seem to be a focus on this first tour of the Städelschule after the pandemic break, fewer animals than plants, living and dead, play a role in a number of installations and also as a motif in the painting.

But above all, people are back.

It is the first tour for director Yasmil Raymond, who has been in office since April 2020. There was a digital “tour” last year.

The euphoria, now again, with time tickets for two hours each and 2 G plus, to be able to invite real visitors to the main building on Dürerstrasse, to the studios on Daimlerstrasse and to the cinema of the German Film Museum, is palpable.

The miniature "performance" was appropriate just in time for the opening on Friday morning: Martina Cooper was allowed to smash Maximiliano Siñani's bright pink piñata, the huge amounts of confetti will now be happily distributed by many feet in the Dürerstraße building, and the inside of the papier-mâché piñata, which is made of play money consists of large bills, is reminiscent of the small queue of early birds that formed even before the official start: the adult audience, very interested in art, takes a close look at the fresh production and takes the slips of paper with them, on which the e-mail is also written -Addresses of the young artists can be found.

But the most beautiful thing: Strolling through the extremely tidy studios, here and there the students provide information about what moved them to their installations, paintings, video works.

Crumbling facade and eerie windows

The fact that a lot of work is done with digital applications, with film and sound, may have intensified during the pandemic, but the technical resourcefulness with which Juliet Carpenter, for example, accurately projects her fifteen-minute feature film loop onto the windshield of a car in Daimlerstrasse, is admirable seated inside on the front seats folded out to lie down can hear the audio track.

A few studios further on, her colleague Paul Haas shows a look at identities, his trip to the Frankfurt model house ranges between laughter and subliminal tension.

In general, suspense, with vague hints of film and video games, often plays a role, an association that also arises with Béla Feldberg's house built into his shared studio: this crumbling facade, the eerie windows,

Many of the international students fall back on political events, traditions or techniques from their countries of origin, an exciting, also playful examination that often results in layers of topics, but also materials.

Lead on stone, cut-out parts of paintings on second or third layers of canvas, prints play with superimpositions, there are rhinestones like from the hobby shop in the middle of collages.

There are two full days of art, talks and performances at the Städelschule, while Judith Hopf's class is exhibiting at the Hotel Nizza until March 11th.

Tour of the Städelschule in Frankfurt until February 20, daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., shuttle service between the studios at Dürerstraße 10 and Daimlerstraße 32, time tickets and programme.