It’s really good to have a seat every now and then. And if it accumulates, all the better. But before there are any misunderstandings: It’s about the 51 benches that have been set up on the new Bauhausplatz in Domagkpark. A place where no one ever sits, that would be nothing.
The “living center of the new city district” is that, enthused mayor Katrin habenschaden, “you can sit nicely under the trees – and all that without any pressure to buy”. One thing, however, should be warned: there are many more benches that have been placed there, but they are far from suitable for sitting on. You’d get your butt wet on them.
In truth they are a fountain, and what a fountain. It’s a bit reminiscent of a bet that bet. It could have gone like this: The candidate Olaf M. from Munich announces that he can stack several dozen benches in such a way that firstly they do not fall over and secondly water runs down them afterwards.
The audience applauds, the moderator laughs and briefly recalls the beer crates or washing machines stacked up in previous shows. Then the command: Great, the bet stands. In the end, the mayor has to turn on the fountain, anxious moments, but nothing collapses – and all of Munich becomes the betting king. Because of the benches, because of the fountain, because of the candidate, we don’t know exactly.
Of course that’s not true. It is about art in construction, created by the well-known, revered and hated art professor Olaf Metzel. It is known that he has a certain tendency to stack up. The series began with police barriers and shopping trolleys in Berlin, continued with intertwined spiral staircases at the Munich Goethe Institute and was far from over with 780 discarded seats from the Nuremberg football stadium. So now the Domagkpark.
Since Easter, the water has been flowing out of the top slats of the seven-metre high sculpture. Individual bench elements are illuminated at night. A real eye-catcher, with which the artist is also breaking new ground in art: the project is called “free and outside”. Which, at a cost of five million euros, is also a low-level affair.