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The Midlands celebrates Cultural Oktoberfest
Clint Motteler
October 29, 2007
By Rachel Haynie
Once his etchings and metal sculptures were in place, properly lit and ready for a Friday night opening at the if ART Gallery on Lincoln Street, German artist Klaus Hartmann took a break to hand deliver an important letter to Mayor Bob Coble.
Hartmann, who makes and teaches art in Kaiserslautern, Germany, brought the letter from that city's new mayor. In it Dr. Klaus Weichel pledged his intentions to continue supporting the cultural exchange that has linked the sibling cities for more than a decade. Kaiserslautern is one of Columbia's sister cities; Weichel's mayorial predecessor had supported the alliance from its inception.
The cultural exchange began with a group of Columbians visiting Kaiserslautern in advance of the Palmetto Tree project mounted by The Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington counties. Kaiserslautern already was working on a comparable city-wide art project.
Artist and sculptor Britta Cruz was invited on that fact-finding mission, both for her knowledge of art and her command of German. The Munich native, then living in Columbia, helped bridge the two cultures and, from that initial meeting with a cadre of artists in Kaiserslautern, enduring collaborations and friendships were borne.
In response to the first artistic foray, a team of German artists traveled to Columbia the following summer. Working shoulder to shoulder with their new American friends, Roland Albert, Reiner Mahrlein, and Hartmann created, sometimes from scrap iron, works of art that were exhibited in raw, open space in The Vista.
Before their flight took them back to their teaching positions in Germany, the international artists pledged to keep the collaboration going. Within the year Cruz along with Mike Williams, Stephen Chesley, and Chris Robinson, USC art professor, traveled to Kaiserslautern and collaborated on works that were exhibited in that city before the team returned to Columbia.
Of the German artists, Hartmann has returned to South Carolina the most often. His work represents him when he is at home where he is a fixture on the Rhineland-Palatinate art scene. His sculpture in particular was part of an international multi-artist show at Jackson Gallery in Aiken in 2003, and Wim Roefs has represented Hartmann since opening the if Art Gallery on Lincoln Street.
No date has been set for a next trip for South Carolina artists to return to Germany, and Coble has not commented yet on the on-going cultural exchange.
Other cultural Oktoberfest celebrations included performances throughout the Midlands by Dic Lustigen Musikanten (The Happy Musicians.) New to the ensemble is Clint Motteler of Lexington on tenor horn. Motteler purchased lederhosen to wear during performances while he was in Bamberg, Germany, one of the city stops of the Army Band from which he recently retired.
