Works on the history of Waren by Stephan Voigtländer
Seven stelae can be seen on the square. Each stele has a reference to the history of Waren. History conditions the present, and the present produces history. Thus, the things that were present when the objects were handed over are already history again. However, the confrontation with history produces the present thought of the viewer.
- Fire extinguisher house
The house that once stood in the middle of the Old Market appears as a body penetrated by a horse-drawn fire engine. The walls of the building are made of firefighting water. The undulating water involves a funeral procession of figures with identical faces on one side. On the other side, a curtain is visible, partly of water, partly of fabric, which reveals a plaque on which facts about the events of the time are written. - Cattle Market
This high relief reveals a grid in the form of a staircase on which cattle for slaughter are laid out. Here symbol and historical fact merge. In the past, market days were held on the Old Market, which were very well attended by the population. The actors reenact a market day on three interpenetrating levels. - The fish
This cuboid presents the environment in which the Old Market is integrated. The Müritz, the cultural landscape, tourism as an economic factor for the region and last but not least the cobblestone as a historical equivalent. - Everyday life
Here you have to deal with the largest cube. A fetus, a person wrapped in a blanket, a female figure as well as other hidden people caught in the structure. Scenic representations of everyday existence rumble in overlapping events around a gentleman taking a meal. - The head
"It was called putting in the pillory," is the inscription here. On one of the front sides of the Old Town Hall was found a ring to which criminals were chained to present them to the public. So around the head are grouped three very old picture frames and a television set. The head is fictitious. - Eater of Hearts
A smaller cube is found right next to the head and deals with one of the numerous, historical city fires. The recovery of a victim, a man eating sweet hearts, a renaissance column entrance and heads appearing in the neighborhood with packaging material for confectionery can be seen here. - Overhead line or gas lamps
Waren was connected to the mains in the 1920-ies, until then there were gas lamps. There is an incident about this. After the local council had applied for a connection to the power supply for the former parsonage with 20 rooms, this was rejected by the responsible authority with the reason that the parsonage already had 5 gas lamps. In the high relief appears here the small sculpture of a power electrician at work on three high-voltage pylons. Opposite are depicted 20 rooms in which there are only 5 gas lamps. On the right and on the left 20 television sets and 15 children uniformed in their facial features are shown. Furthermore, it is about a poor stranger who is saved from falling.
Stephan Voigtländer was born in Greifswald in 1965. In 1982 he completed an apprenticeship as a woodworker with a high school diploma. He became a wood turner, restorer and model maker. He then studied sculpture at the University of Art and Design in Halle-Burg Giebichenstein. In 1998 he received his diploma and became a master student there with Prof. Bernd Göbel until 2000. Since 2000 he was a freelance sculptor, since 2007 with a teaching position at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. He died in 2011 in Leipzig
