Bodenseereiter

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Bodenseereiter - fountain in Überlingen
Detail: Martin Walser as a rider on Lake Constance

The Bodenseereiter fountain is a work of art by the sculptor Peter Lenk in Überlingen . The fountain was built in 1999 and is best known as a caricature and grotesque memorial for the local poet Martin Walser .

The city of Überlingen expected a representation of the rider from Gustav Schwab's popular ballad Der Reiter und der Bodensee .

Lenk's execution shows a reluctantly forward striving horse , then joyless and rigid with discomfort with the reins in hand Martin Walser . Instead of boots, the rider wears ice skates .

The artist explained his work in leaflets:

"Poet - immortal - figure skaters on horseback on the frozen lakes of German history. He only dismounts when the ice is dangerously thin, then he does his pirouettes. "

He alluded to the controversy surrounding Walser's "Paulskirchenrede" when he received the peace prize from the German book trade on October 11, 1998.

Years later, in 2004, in an interview with Profil magazine, Walser still showed himself to be little uplifted. He “definitely never looked at the monument”, “doesn't go where it is” and has changed his hairdresser “so that I don't have to come by”. "You live in a city for 30 years and then they just set something up."

Currently it says on the artist's website:

“Today's rider writes his own messages. Poet, entitled to immortality and suitable for promenades: Martin Walser. Also in the fountain ensemble: two bank directors and the mother-in-law. 'If I had known that beforehand, it would never have been approved!' said the mayor with a laugh after the unveiling. "

Web links

Commons : Bodenseereiter  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c DER SPIEGEL 26/1999 (June 28, 1999), spiegel.de
  2. ↑ a b Helge Bendl: Der Eulenspiegel from the Swabian Sea , stern.de October 11, 2007 4:04 p.m.
  3. ↑ https://www.ueberlingen-bodensee.de/Media/Sehenswerte/Brunnen-Der-Bodenseereiter
  4. ↑ See also https://www.peter-lenk.de/skulpturen/baden-wuerttemberg/ueberlingen/walserbrunnen.html
  5. ↑ DER SPIEGEL 7/2004 (February 9, 2004) p. 182, spiegel.de
  6. ↑ https://www.peter-lenk.de/skulpturen/baden-wuerttemberg/ueberlingen/walserbrunnen/beschreibung.html

Coordinates: 47 ° 45 '58.27 "  N , 9 ° 9' 32.93"  E