Art in Bonn Statue of Beethoven erected in Base Camp
Bonn · The artist Jana Merkens has created a wax figure of Beethoven. The two and a half meter tall composer will be at the Bonn base camp for five months. The operators are happy about their new guest.
He is enthroned high up on the gallery, the most famous son of the federal city. Beethoven has returned and now resides at base camp for five months.
Michael Schlößer, operator of the extraordinary hostel in the shadow of the Museum Mile, and Thomas Lenz, spokesman for the camp, are particularly proud to be able to accommodate this famous guest. "After all, Beethoven has come a long way," says Lenz with a laugh. The two gentlemen don't find it unusual that Beethoven „resides“ with them, of all people, as the most sought-after artist in the city. "We got in on it first," says Lenz.
They had read in the newspaper that Jana Merkens, the Bornheim artist who made the larger-than-life Beethoven lifelike from silicone, was looking for a place for him. They did not have to think long. Merkens is happy to have found a suitable place. "The city didn't want to put him anywhere and they didn't ask about the price," says Lenz. It is not exactly low. If you want Beethoven, you have to start by making a minimum bid of 80,000 euros to signal your interest in buying him. At the base camp, however, he is allowed to stay for five months free of charge.
Bornheim student worked for nine months on figure of Beethoven
Merkens, who received her master's degree at the University of Duisburg/Essen, made the Beethoven figure in her student apartment in Essen. It took her nine months. She received help from her father, who built the stainless steel skeleton that stabilized under the silicone mass, and a friend sewed the clothes together with her. With a height of 2.40 metres, mind you, sitting down, the support was also sorely needed.
The way he sits there on his chair and lets his gaze wander thoughtfully into the distance, the returned Ludwig van Beethoven seems very real. If you stroke his cheeks and chin delicately, you can feel whiskers and small hairs grow out of the silicone skin on his hands. Merkens has processed 170,000 human hairs, 40 dog hairs, 35 square metres of fabric and much more.
Shortly before he leaves his current home in Bonn, he, or rather, Beethoven's orchestra under the direction of Dirk Kaftan will give a concert at the Basecamp on 7 March. "Maybe he will have finished his eleventh symphony by then," says Lenz with a wink, looking at the music book that is lying on Beethoven's legs. After all, he has already immortalised the first notes in it.
Original text: Susanne Wächter
Translation: Mareike Graepel
