Wasn't there something just recently?

During his less than three-year directorship at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts, Alfred Weidinger, who came from Austria and then emigrated there again, dedicated himself to local art with Aplomb.

In addition to many small exhibitions by local (but definitely nationally important) artists, the results were an Arno Rink retrospective, a three-part look at the collection history of the company (FAZ from January 14, 2020) and, most importantly, an overview of East German art around the turning year of 1989 (FAZ of August 9, 2019).

And now the successor Stefan Weppelmann has set up a show offering 222 works as the first major exhibition that no longer comes from Weidinger's legacy: It is called "Bilderkosmos Leipzig",

but also offers two handfuls of sculptures and installations.

Apart from the respective picture titles, there is no information whatsoever;

a few general classification texts are posted on panels leaning against the wall.

The whole thing was knitted up with such a hot needle that a catalog was not included, because during the preparations they came across so much that had not yet been processed in their own inventory that the work was only just beginning.

Andrew Plathaus

Responsible editor for literature and literary life.

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This can also be seen from the fact that on the third floor, which is used almost entirely for presentations, there are tablets that offer a further 75 images for viewing.

The audience is called upon to create a ranking list through likes, and then the most popular works from the depot should be brought to light - the only question is: at the expense of which others?

Because the current selection is good, and even if Weppelmann has already announced that it will be the basis for a future prominent permanent presentation of Leipzig painting in the house, it will hardly be given so much space a second time.

It's only natural to proliferate in Leipzig with Leipzig.

No more successful trademark in recent German art history than the label "New Leipzig School" around and after Neo Rauch, and the earlier "Leipzig School" from GDR times with the main protagonists Tübke, Mattheuer and Heisig should also be well known.

With the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB), the city has one of the most renowned art academies in Europe to offer, but why Leipzig artists have remained more faithful to their place of work than their colleagues at other academy locations remains to be clarified.

Of course: in GDR times they couldn't go abroad, and Berlin, Halle or Dresden weren't alternatives,

because the Leipzig professors had come to terms more skilfully with the officially prescribed socialist realism - keyword "representational painting", today still the greatest capital of Leipzig painters.

But not much changed after the turnaround.

The list of those involved is correspondingly illustrious.