Exhibition – The town hall as a creative quarter – District of Munich

Don’t tell anyone that there are no creative people in the Planegger town hall: In the “Blue House Art” exhibition, nine employees prove with paintings, photographs, small treasures and many remarkable caricatures that there is still a second life outside of files and regulations , All kinds of bureaucracy and official channels. What mayor Hermann Nafziger, his treasurer Peter Vogel, Kerstin Obermayer from the financial administration, Kim-Thy Kllokoqi-Le from the building department, Petra Hilpoltsteiner from the reception, Maria Bergmann from the main office, the former building department employee Martina Dorn, environmental department manager Richard Richter and press officer Kiki Xander Wanting to show it to a wide audience is often unusual and also has the nice side effect that town hall employees show a personal side and the much-scolded bureaucracy gets a friendlier face.

For example, there is Peter Vogel. Pevo, as the chamberlain calls himself as an artist, is no longer a stranger. Not only did he ensure that the Planegg household ran out of debt for 20 years, but he also made a name for himself as a caricaturist, painter, author and poet. The master of long series of numbers occasionally roams the country with a blues musician. Vogel’s caricatures are subtle, often cunning and ambiguous, reminiscent of drawings by Olaf Gulbransson, his texts identify him as a soul mate of Karl Valentin or Gerhard Polt. The 61-year-old from the Fünfseenland considers himself to be a “universal cashmere and occasional thinker”, which is undoubtedly an understatement. “Be free, be different” is Pevo’s motto and pictures like the “rabbit shark” are wonderful evidence of this. Vogel retires in spring. He will be absent.

And then the boss himself. Is it bad when you say that Mayor Hermann Nafziger is not carrying his talent for photography and surreal drawings right in front of him? Certainly not, it is more likely that the CSU man prefers to let his alternative talents blossom in secret. “To see the world in all its beauty through a small window” – that was already more than a hobby for the ten-year-old man in his nifties. The first camera he got was a Super Paxette. The 58-year-old still has it today. Nowadays, Nafziger brings objects of all kinds, plants and animals digitally, of course, and stages astonishing plays of light and shadow. His caricature of a bureaucrat fighting with a tie is really funny: “In the past I always had to wear ties. For me these are enemies,” explains Nafziger. And in fact you only see him with a tie on compelling occasions.

The town hall exhibition set something in motion in the trained electrician: “Now I’ve tasted blood again and want to continue,” says Nafziger. One can also wish that from Petra Hilpoltsteiner. When she’s not at the reception in the town hall, she sews unusual dirndls, wild and colorful. “Sewing runs in the family for us, our great-grandfather was a men’s bespoke tailor in Freiburg, grandma a tailor in Offenburg,” she says. “I ended up teaching myself.” Each of her dirndls is unique, and visitors can admire several of them in the town hall. The motive for the hobby seamstress? “I look so good in a dirndl,” she says with a wink.

Kiki Xander is not only Planegg’s public relations officer, she also designs rings. This has always been her passion, says the well-traveled literary scholar, “the result of the interaction of different inspirations and feelings, colors, patterns, fabrics, materials and experiences.” Even “sounds and tastes” affect Kiki Xander when she works on a new model, as she says. The many trips – she lived in the USA for a long time – have inspired her. A number of examples of their art can be admired in their own showcase in the town hall: small marvels made of semi-precious stones, glass, wood, shells or any other finds.

The “Blue House Art” exhibition can be seen during the normal opening times of the Planegger town hall and should last at least four weeks.