Jeremias Geisselbrunn, Muttergottes vom Marienaltar aus St. Kolumba, Köln, um 1650, Alabaster (1943 zerstört, 1991/92 aus Fragmenten wiederhergestellt)
1997 About the Site: Kolumba
Mid February to September 1997
About the Site: St. Kolumba
Reencounter with the Unknown – Part 9
Parallel to the current architecture competition for the new building of the Diözesanmuseum upon the ruins of the St. Kolumba Church in Cologne, we are organising a six-month programme of exhibitions, lectures, talks and concerts designed to make us experience the site and introduce and explore it at the same time. As always, in this 9th part of our exhibition series “Reencounter with the Unknown” a major work of the collection forms the central focus: the “Mother and Child” from around 1650 by the sculptor Jeremias Geisselbrunn. In the northern side aisle of the Late Gothic St. Kolumba Church, the baroque portrayal of the Madonna once posed an outstanding highlight. In 1677 Jakob de Groote, known for his various donations to churches in Cologne, gave the piece to Kolumba. After having survived the endeavours of rigorous over-cleansing in the 19th century, to which a lot of Colognes churches had fallen victim, it finally seemed lost when the entire church was destroyed on 28 January 1945. The piece owes its reconstruction to the diligent restoration of the seventy fragments of the alabaster sculpture which had burst in the flames. The “Reencounter” dedicates itself this time to this major work of Cologne Baroque sculpture. Its liveliness triggered by its energy finds a counterbalance in our presentation of the quiet work of artist Kurt Benning from Munich. For his “Luminated Box” with the seemingly presumptuous and loaded title of a “Historical Picture” called “The War in Middle Europe, mid XX. Century” Benning uses a photo of the place his father worked in, taken by his father in Belgrade in 1943. The artist as an eyewitness of history using the reference of such pictures is also a topic of the video installation by Klaus vom Bruch “… in the Window” of the museum.
About the Site: St. Kolumba
Reencounter with the Unknown – Part 9
Parallel to the current architecture competition for the new building of the Diözesanmuseum upon the ruins of the St. Kolumba Church in Cologne, we are organising a six-month programme of exhibitions, lectures, talks and concerts designed to make us experience the site and introduce and explore it at the same time. As always, in this 9th part of our exhibition series “Reencounter with the Unknown” a major work of the collection forms the central focus: the “Mother and Child” from around 1650 by the sculptor Jeremias Geisselbrunn. In the northern side aisle of the Late Gothic St. Kolumba Church, the baroque portrayal of the Madonna once posed an outstanding highlight. In 1677 Jakob de Groote, known for his various donations to churches in Cologne, gave the piece to Kolumba. After having survived the endeavours of rigorous over-cleansing in the 19th century, to which a lot of Colognes churches had fallen victim, it finally seemed lost when the entire church was destroyed on 28 January 1945. The piece owes its reconstruction to the diligent restoration of the seventy fragments of the alabaster sculpture which had burst in the flames. The “Reencounter” dedicates itself this time to this major work of Cologne Baroque sculpture. Its liveliness triggered by its energy finds a counterbalance in our presentation of the quiet work of artist Kurt Benning from Munich. For his “Luminated Box” with the seemingly presumptuous and loaded title of a “Historical Picture” called “The War in Middle Europe, mid XX. Century” Benning uses a photo of the place his father worked in, taken by his father in Belgrade in 1943. The artist as an eyewitness of history using the reference of such pictures is also a topic of the video installation by Klaus vom Bruch “… in the Window” of the museum.