Goethe? The Hammering Man? Ottmar Hörl's euro sign perhaps? Or maybe you prefer bull and bear, who stand for the ups and downs of the stock markets on the stock market? As sculptures, they all refer not only to themselves, whether they were cast in bronze, aluminum or steel. In front of the opera, at the fair and in the city of Frankfurt, they not only commemorate certain institutions, long-past events or individual personalities. Ideally, art in public space is something like the mirror of a city.
Christoph Schütte
Freelance author for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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It can be as a reflection of past greatness, former ambitions and former frugality, as a reminder of the history of the community and its citizens, as a memory of fathers, daughters and sons of the city as well as an indication of their vanities, their mentality and, if one thinks of the comic art of Hans Traxler or F. K. Waechter, their humor.
Which is why, seen in the light, hardly any sculpture stands for Frankfurt as much as Frau Rauscher from de Klappergass'. The, as it is called in the Sachsenhäuser Gassenhauer, with de Beul on the egg. Whereby – actually, it doesn't work without Goethe with the best will in the world. In the end, however, it is probably the Green Sauce Monument in the fields of Oberrad with which art captures the Frankfurt mind in precisely balanced forms.
First and foremost a matter of faith
Less so, because here, too, scholars argue about where Frankfurt's cultural heritage actually came from. So whether the national dish once came from Italy or with the Huguenots to the Main, or whether in the end it was Mrs. Aja who invented the favorite food of her Filius Johann Wolfgang at the time. But this is nothing more than a pretty, admittedly persistent legend. And also whether the finely weighed herbs have to steep in yogurt or sour cream, necessarily belong in quark or in hand-stirred mayonnaise, is still not clear. But first and foremost a matter of faith.
What is certain is that even the Olympian loved the dish, which can be ordered from the beginning of Holy Week until at least the first frost in every cider industry. So much so that allegedly the wife had to send Mama to the privy council to Weimar at Easter. That alone would be worth a monument in Frankfurt. Above all, however, every child in Frankfurt knows that parsley, pimpinelle and sorrel absolutely belong in it, as well as chives, cress, chervil and borage. And is protected as a recipe of the "Frankfurter Grie Soß".
Of course, Olga Schulz is also aware of this, even though the artist was still studying "experimental spatial concepts" in Offenbach when she presented her design for the Green Sauce Monument 15 years ago. Which is why Heiner Blum's student, born in 1981, did not dedicate a greenhouse to the sauce, but to each of her herbs. Architectures reminiscent of greenhouses, to be precise, which merge into a sculptural ensemble in the open field, devoid of any purpose. Too small to grow more than for your own needs of green sauce.
Too large, concise and expansive, but also that the easily accessible monument, which is easily accessible even to the inexperienced walker, did not assert itself in the open field. Only cleaned and renovated a few years ago, the glass houses are lined up like herb pearls on the field between Kochstraße and Speckweg. And shine as veritable colour fields in yellow and fir green, mint, algae or bottle green in spring, summer, autumn and winter, matched to the colour of chervil, borage or sorrel.
Only cider is here, for whatever reason, no one to get. Be that as it may, we still have Holy Week. And besides, as is well known, Goethe preferred to drink wine.