Angel for Chemnitz

“Angel for Chemnitz”, Silke Rehberg
Photographer: Ornilepi, Lizenz: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As part of our photo challenge “Messages of Angels”, we artists from Fraktalwerk Project Space Chemnitz explore Chemnitz and its angels, also from Berlin. Today a work in public space by Silke Rehberg, location: Chemnitz, Bahnhofstraße.

In 1997, the bronze angel arrived in Chemnitz – and has remained until today. She stands on her steel column and looks out over the city from a lofty height of eight and a half metres, her back and wings turned towards the bus station. She stands straight up with her head slightly bent, her supporting leg rests with her bare foot on the head of the column, her playing leg levitating with her foot slightly lowered. Her right arm is stretched horizontally forward and her index finger in the direction of the Civic Centre, as if to point the way, into the city of Chemnitz. At any time, she could take to the skies and fly away with a flutter of her wings, which are by no means folded up on her back.

Silke Rehberg has given her angel something else to take with her: “discarded things” can be found on the floor of the square in front of the Moritzhof and inside the building in the form of mosaic pictures made of small ceramic stones. Banana peel, the core of an apple, cigarette butts, broken glass, a cassette with worn-out ribbon. Leftovers that are trampled on every day and cannot be disposed of by the city cleaning service, a silent memento mori.

Mosaic pictures in front of the Moritzhof, © Fraktalwerk

Invisible are angels and floor mosaics for people who hastily cross the city to arrive somewhere. But those who are calmly, mindful on the move in the city, which can be home, perhaps even homeland, will be able to raise and lower their gaze – to perceive.

Marlen Wagner