Anyone strolling through Weimar these days will come across obscure geometric shapes: white spikes on the Theaterplatz, on Schillerstrasse or at the Stadtschloss.

The monoliths with expressionist inscriptions are scattered throughout the historic center.

The Klassik Stiftung calls this “language explosions”.

The text fragments of Weimar's most famous personalities are printed on the structures.

Goethe and Schiller, Wieland and Herder, Nietzsche and Gropius.

In 2022, the Classic Foundation wants to draw attention to the power of words with its theme year "Language", the exhibition season is dedicated to the tension between poetry, diplomacy and philosophy.

Kevin Hanschke

volunteer.

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Many of the objects on display bear quotations that dock to the present.

"We all sleep on volcanoes," says Goethe and now also on the Frauenplan.

In his house it says on a wall "Poems are painted window panes".

The "language laboratory" was set up in front of the city palace, a wooden hut that is intended to function as a "speakers corner" and in which readings, workshops and poetry slams take place.

The aim is to transform the previously unused square in front of the Bastille "into an art site," says Ulrike Lorenz, head of the Classics Foundation, which has set itself the goal of including the city's unknown spots.

With pop-up stands, she wants to bring classic culture to the prefabricated housing area in Weimar-Nord.

In Goethe's carriage room, on the other hand, the designer Stefan Matlik sets words in motion and has provided another economic room with Goethe's erotic and censored verses.

In the Schillerhaus, the ode "To Joy" is linked to video statements by politicians, scientists and musicians that merge into one another.

Psychedelic water images and onomatopoeic slogans

But the opening show takes place in the Schiller Museum, in which George Orwell's "Newspeak", the language from his dystopian novel "1984" transformed by language politics, is the hook.

"Neuspréch: Art contradicts" is the title of this conceptual art show.

The exhibition shows works by fifteen contemporary artists who deal with the power of language.

“Art can do something that is normally hardly noticed.

It makes language visible, it shows speaking,” says the accompanying text.

Already at the entrance, the room of the "Thesis", visitors are welcomed by Simon Starke's plan installation "Art promises itself", in which texts on the art of Adorno and Luhmann are combined with the help of calligraphy.

In the video installation "Gesundbrunnen" by the artist collective reproducts, psychedelic water images merge with fragments of language.

Gunter Reski dissects the artistic production process with his collage-like works, complete with onomatopoeic slogans such as "The end device color tube is also interested in the order".

He also paints an artist who works meticulously with his brush.

In the adjoining room are Goethe and Schiller memorabilia, such as postcards and tins from the Wilhelmine era, which are intended to remind us of how the words of the great poets were processed through arts and crafts.

The large-scale installation "Philoars-Library" by Andrea Tippel, which prints book titles of fictitious books on the walls that, in her view, still have to be written, fits in with this.

Schiller's reception as a video sculpture

Also based on the devotional items is a historical display case from the Anna Amalia Library, which contains dummy books from the Classic and Romantic periods.

They present the medium of the book, which is misappropriated as a hiding place for a poison pharmacy or a liquor bottle.

There are also three more showcases in the “antithesis” room.

In one is the book-bound edition of the literary journal "Horen", which Friedrich Schiller published between 1795 and 1797 and in the first edition of which he published the "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man".

“Beauty leads the sensual man to form and thought;

Through beauty, the spiritual human being is brought back to matter and restored to the world of the senses,” it says.

In contrast to this are the satirically charged pictures and objects by Ingrid Scherr, which focus on the role of the artist as the creator of a work and do not stop at Schiller.

In the video sculpture "Schiller Complex" Scherr tells the story of Schiller's reception.

Art speaks and promises itself, that is the credo of the show, which is a revolution for the Classic Foundation.

There has not been such a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary art in Weimar for several years.

The foundation also wants to open up to the city.

For the first time, the Schiller and Goethe residence can be entered free of charge through the historic entrance doors.

That hasn't happened since the fall of the Wall.

Young target groups are to be addressed with a "Weimar app", which presents the cultural sites with videos and texts, and Instagram, Twitter and TikTok activities.

In addition, Ulrike Lorenz, who previously managed the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, also wants to dedicate herself to contemporary art: "Weimar has always been a place of the avant-garde and with the Bauhaus University we have a university that still carries this claim to the city today".

The end of the language course through the inner city of Weimar is fitting.

In a corner of Schillerstrasse, one of the jagged structures reads “Petite Citizen”, “Fairies” and “Magic Sisters”.

A travel group has their picture taken in front of the street furniture – the readjustment of the Classic Foundation is in full swing.

Neuspréch: Art contradicts.

In the Schiller Museum, Weimar;

until July 10th.

No catalogue.