Göttingen Elevation

The bronze work by Andreas Welzenbach is two-part: a Chippendale-style footstool as a capital on an apparently extendable 'aluminum' column. On top, nothing or no one. The blocky, angular figure just two steps away stands on an equally blocky footstool. However, the lifting rod in this case is almost completely retracted into the ground.Andreas Welzenbach completed his studies in sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe with Professor Stephan Balkenhol. For his sculpture, the artist exchanges the wood he previously preferred for bronze casting.The mold taken from the model retains the characteristic features of rough material processing. The overpainting also evokes the image of colorfully painted wooden figures. The stocky, defensively equipped figure was designed by Welzenbach based on a contemporary depiction of the Göttingen private lecturer Dr. Johann Ernst Arminius von Rauschenplatt. The eloquent revolutionary and freedom fighter, who stormed the town hall in 1831 during the so-called 'Göttingen Revolution', formed a revolutionary council and deposed the magistrate of the city of Göttingen, is exemplarily placed by Welzenbach not on the column but just a few steps away from the Göttingen town hall steps.For Andreas Welzenbach's art seeks ironic breaking. The double readability of the title 'Göttinger Erhebung' gets its adequate plastic implementation. To the left, the empty column that can be extended or retracted as desired to elevate any person above the others. To the right, a historical figure who raised his voice without ever being elevated to the pedestal. That Rauschenplatt's figure remains at eye level with the viewer and that through the wide-open mouth of the revolutionary, safely shielded behind the wall-like back, gives the opportunity to express one's own discontent is a subtle positioning in the monument debate.