Unzeitgemäße Zeitgenossen Sculpture

Bernd Göbel, professor of sculpture at the University of Industrial Design at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle an der Saale since 1982, began in the late 1970s to give form to personal annoyances by modelling people to suit them. The figures were given names ending in "-iker", probably referring to dogmatists. In the mid-1980s, the idea of permanently displaying the work in public arose and negotiations began with the city of Leipzig. The design of the modified version with a high base and the selection of the sayings to be attached began in 1986. At the beginning of 1990, the casting was commissioned from the Leipzig bronze foundry Noack. The work was completed in September and Göbel donated it to the city of Leipzig, which immediately displayed it in a representative location and presented it to the public on November 14 of that year as "Untimely Contemporaries". The height is such that a normal-sized person cannot walk under the beam without being (thought-provoked). The column, which was built in the last years of the GDR, has a wide crack in the upper part, which a small man is trying to stabilize using primitive means - a branch and a rope. Five 1.40-meter-high naked bronze figures stand on this base. They are the pedagogue with a golden (wooden) hammer, the diagnostician with a golden ear trumpet, the rationalizer with a golden saw, the urban designer with a golden laurel wreath, his finger on the detonator and his gaze in the direction of the university church that was blown up in 1968, and the art theorist with a golden nose and golden ears. 14 aphorisms are attached to the vertical column.

An interesting sculpture with five figures: rationalist, urban designer, diagnostician, pedagogue, art theorist. The depiction is probably meant to be somewhat ironic.

This sculpture is located right at the beginning of Grimmaische Straße in the direction of Augustusplatz. It comes from the sculptor Bernd Göbel, who also created the fountain "Two Worlds" (located in Merseburg on the Entenplan).

The artist donated this sculpture to the city of Leipzig at the end of 1990 and since then it has found its place in the well-known location. The former professor of sculpture probably did not design the work without ulterior motives (hence the name). It shows 5 figures: all are naked, standing on a beam and strictly sticking to their principles. Some details are gold-plated: e.g. the saw, the ear trumpet, the ears or the nose.

Source: snapshot.org