Ship of Fools (Nuremberg)

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Ship of fools by Jürgen Weber (dry well placed sculpture)
Ship of Fools from the south (view from the Museum Bridge / Königstrasse)
Detail view

The Narrenschiffbrunnen is a dry-installed fountain sculpture in Nuremberg . It is the work of the sculptor Jürgen Weber, who died in 2007 .

history

The fountain sculpture was created in 1984–87. It was cast in two copies. The first casting is in Hameln . The second copy was shown in 1987 on the occasion of an art exhibition in Nuremberg. The patron Kurt Klutentreter (1910-2000) made the purchase possible. In 1988 the sculpture was placed dry on the (unnamed) square between Museumbrücke, Spitalgasse and Plobenhofgasse. The representational sculpture met with a mixed response and was criticized at the time for its “neo-baroque” character. In this respect, this tied in with the criticism of the Hans-Sachs-Fountain , also by Weber, which was set up in front of the White Tower in 1984 .

In 1990 efforts were made to complete the sculpture as a fountain in the sense of the artist (“the ship should have overflowed like a fountain bowl and water should have gushed out of the galleon figures, the crow and the wine glass”). Klutentreter had agreed to take over the costs estimated at 300,000 DM for a higher cone, a paved pool and the water supply. The culture committee of the city council, advised by the advisory board for fine arts, declined the donation and the completion of the fountain. The fountain sculpture is still dry on a pavement hump in the pedestrian zone.

description

The fountain sculpture takes up the pictorial representations of Albrecht Dürer's woodcuts for the moral satire Das Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brant (1497). The 3.60 m high bronze sculpture shows a boat as a metaphor for the world threatened with extinction. The figures - typical for Weber - expressively sculpted and seemingly in motion show the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Adam and his murderer Cain as a child, the allegory of violence and other scenes from the book Brants. The two banners surrounding the fountain make a reference to the present as an appeal against environmental destruction, war and violence.

literature

  • Kurt Klutentreter: All about the ship of fools. Memories of an established 77 year old Nuremberg “idiot”. Almost a novel. Papyrus, Nürnberg 1988, 416 pages, ISBN 3-9801901-0-2 .
  • Jürgen Weber : The Ship of Fools. Art without a compass. Autobiography, Universitas Verlag, Munich 1994, 480 pages, ISBN 3-8004-1311-6 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Ship of Fools  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kurt Klutentreter in Franken-Wiki: http://www.franken-wiki.de/index.php/Kurt_Klutentreter
  2. ↑ Szt. Bischof-Maiser-Strasse
  3. ↑ Jürgen Weber: The ship of fools. Art without a compass. Universitas, Munich 1994, page 366.
  4. ↑ Ibid., Pp. 372 and 375.
  5. ^ Opinion of the Advisory Board for Fine Arts for the meeting of the Culture Committee of February 1992: "Item 5 Ship of Fools: Donors and artists (Weber, Braunschweig) want a so-called 'refinement' of the 'Ship of Fools' sculpture on Königstrasse - Bischof-Meiser-Strasse by expanding it as a well system with a water basin. This suggestion can by no means be accepted: the scale of the 'Ship of Fools' is already too rough compared to the sculpture of the 'Dancing Peasant Couple' by Grzimek that was previously installed there. The addition of a water basin and additional design elements in the pavement would severely disrupt the spatial structure and enhance the already questionable pseudo-baroque sensualism of the 'ship of fools'. Any further overloading of the site must be prevented. "

Coordinates: 49 ° 27 ′ 11.3 "  N , 11 ° 4 ′ 41.3"  E