Hand with clock
Hand with clock is a sculpture in Berlin's Hansaviertel from 1975. The bronze sculpture by the sculptor Joachim Schmettau was erected in front of today's Tiergarten Gymnasium as art in architecture.
history
The work of art has stood on the corner of Altonaer Strasse and Lessingstrasse on the forecourt of the Menzel Oberschule since 1975 (since 2012: Tiergarten Gymnasium). When the school received an extension in the 1970s, the sculpture was commissioned as art in architecture . The design for the hand with clock comes from the Berlin sculptor Joachim Schmettau. It was his first sculpture in public space, which was followed by other works such as the Weltkugelbrunnen (1983) on Breitscheidplatz or the dancing couple (1984) on Hermannplatz .
The bronze sculpture is mounted on a square stele made of white exposed concrete, the cube-shaped upper part of which is slightly rotated. The hand rests on the base, with the fingertips grasping the upper area of the stele, which was originally covered with red mosaic tiles. The cut-off wrist forms the top of the sculpture. An electronic clock with a digital number display is embedded directly below . While the digits glow in red, the hand is held in silver gray. Including the base, the height of the work of art is 4.5 meters. The sculpture has a diameter of around 1.5 meters. It is not Schmettau's only sculpture in which he deals with the subject of the hand. On a much smaller scale, he also formed the sculpture Hand with Egg , in which an upward hand holds an egg between the fingers.
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The sculpture hand with clock , located at a busy intersection in the West Berlin inner city area, quickly developed into the school's distinctive symbol and, under the motto “We meet by the hand”, became a popular meeting place for students. The sculpture achieved international fame in 1983 as the backdrop for the video for the song Everything Counts by the British synthpop band Depeche Mode . While the group sings from grabbing hands (meaning: 'greedy hands'), the band members stand around the sculpture hand with clock .
After just a few years, the sculpture no longer gave any temporal orientation, as the digital clock gave up its function due to the weather. In the years that followed, graffiti , painting of the fingernails and the application of stickers resulted in disfigurement , so that the sculpture became increasingly unsightly. In addition, the supporting steel frame inside the hand was badly corroded . In 2008, the Hansaviertel Citizens' Association, together with the management of the Menzel School, initiated the renovation of the sculpture and had it dismantled in the meantime. The hand with the watch has been restored, cleaned and with a new watch back in its original place since 2012 . The red mosaic at the top of the stele was replaced by orange-colored exposed concrete.
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Mende, Kurt Wernicke (Ed.): Berlin Mitte, the lexicon . Stapp, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-87776-111-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Mende, Wernicke: Berlin Mitte, das Lexikon , p. 265.
- ↑ See an illustration on the homepage of Galerie Ludwig Lange ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Ralf Liptau: bronze hand in front of Menzel high school renovated . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Berliner Woche , November 12, 2012.
- ↑ Sylvia Vogt: The hand is back . In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 30, 2012
- ↑ Note on the video on the homepage of the Tiergarten Gymnasium.
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '9 " N , 13 ° 20' 23.2" E