Ceremony marking the 100th birthday of the artist Erich Schickling

On 21 June 2024

Markus Noichl in MZ of 12.06.24

A place that does the soul good

At the celebration of Erich Schickling's 100th birthday in Eggisried, speakers pay tribute to his work. Why they describe his place of work in the Günztal as a "place of power" and Gesamtkunstwerk".

The Unterallgäu district administrator Alex Eder paid tribute to the Schickling Foundation's estate as a "Gesamtkunstwerk" and a "place of power" at the anniversary celebration marking Erich Schickling's 100th birthday and, at the same time, the Foundation's 25 years of existence. The other speakers found similar words. Being here "does the soul good", especially in times of the "digital storm", said Klaus Holetschek, chair of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament and also a member of the Schickling Foundation's board of trustees.

Petra Beer, deputy president of the Swabia district, praised Schickling's art as "turned towards people" and still relevant today. And Ottobeuren's mayor German Fries saw in the light-flooded glass pictures the very symbol of transparency, transcendence and spirituality.

When the rain drummed on the glass roof in between, the Foundation chair Ulrike Meyer interpreted it humorously as a "blessing from above".

That the tribute to this place as a "place of encounter and contemplation" was no empty phrase showed in all the speeches, which were marked by depth and personal words. Dr Georg Bayerle, the cultural scholar and communicator known from BR, devoted his presentation of the Schickling illustrated volume to the Schickling quotation "With our eyes we drink". The publisher Josef Fink introduced the contributors to this volume, from the photographer to the graphic designer (some of whom had travelled all the way from Berlin especially for the occasion), and called the result a centrepiece of his work with 1800 art guides over 28 years.

Just as Prof. Julius Berger deliberately alternated between classical music and folk tunes in his virtuoso cello interludes for the ceremony, so Schickling too had let both spheres enrich him in order to create his "ecstatic confessions" (a quotation from Martin Buber), that is, his confessions in the rapture of creation. That everything fits here, as district administrator Eder noted with astonishment, even the blades of grass poking up between the paving slabs, did not surprise him, said Bayerle. In a mysterious way the light plays its part here, playing kindly around everything.

Before the ceremony in the event hall, the crowd of visitors gathered in and in front of the house chapel, the nucleus of this estate, where Schickling's parents once settled and found a new home in the Günztal after their flight from the East.

At this opening, sensuously framed in sound by Andreas (recorder) and Aris Kammenos (cello), Dr Florian Schuller, former director of the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, offered substantial reflections on "The Sign" by Schalom Ben-Chorin, one of the great mediators between Judaism and Christianity.

Friends, that the almond branch blossoms and buds again,

is that not a sign that love remains?

Schalom Ben-Chorin