NIMM PLATZ - Wenn Eistüten vom Himmeln fallen und Heilige zu Sitzbänken werden

In the organizer's words:

A city walk along visible and invisible works of art around Neumarkt with Kay von Keitz

There are many works of art to discover in urban public spaces. Much more than most people moving through Cologne's city center would expect. Some of these works immediately catch the eye, but quite a few are simply overlooked, and some have changed their location over the years and decades or have disappeared from the urban space altogether. In a two-hour city walk, which will be held four times in total, the focus is not only on the intensive examination of individual works, but above all on their urban context. The theme is therefore not only the respective works and their backgrounds, but also the diverse context in which these art objects have their particular roles and functions: in terms of content, time, architecture and urban planning, politics and society. The tour along highly diverse works of art shows the range of art typologies that can be found within a fairly manageable area in the city center: from memorials to fountain sculptures, from "drop sculptures" to wall reliefs, from façade paintings to artistic plaza designs. Questions about the changing expectations and functional attributions of art in public space, about its effectiveness or ineffectiveness, and why it is loved, but often also rejected, will be discussed. Different perspectives will be taken: from the people who live with art, from the city as client, planner and owner and, of course, from the artists, who move in a conflict-laden field of tension between artistic freedom and commissioned work, between recognition and disregard of their work. The start and finish of the city walk to various works of art is Neumarkt, and after a short introduction, the group of participants will walk around Neumarkt. At the end of the approximately two-hour tour, there will be an opportunity to sum up the tour together and discuss what they have seen.