The Artists' Necropolis at the Blue Lake in Kassel was Harry Kramer's last major art project. Up to 40 artists are supposed to build their tombs here during lifetime. The discussions with authorities and environmental activists lasted over a decade until 1992, when this utopia finally became reality.

For Harry Kramer, his uneasiness about art in public space was the decisive reason to realize his ideas of his artist's cemetery in the recreational area of the Habichtswald near Kassel. Around 1980, he accused urban planning of instrumentalizing art in order to conceal social interventions in urban structures. He argued that the symbolic function subordinated to the works of art was used to direct the displeasure about urban planning interventions at the works of art. In Kramer's view, the only field in which art finds its own unmistakable identity was that of the cult of the dead. Here, the artist does not have to search for superficial content, since the purpose of the work of art imposes itself upon the artist.

Something would have been missed if criticism of the funeral system had not been adressed in the context of this project. Harry Kramer's much quoted question, whether it would not be more appropriate to feed the carcasses to buzzards and dogs instead of leaving them to the mortician to be put aside, was therefore almost obligatory. But the actual intention of enforcing the necropolis was, apart from critically questioning the funeral conventions, to offer the selected artists an opportunity to create authentic works again, free of all constraints and obligations.

In September 1992 the tombs of Rune Mields and Timm Ulrichs were the first monuments to be erected. Works by Fritz Schwegler, Werner Ruhnau, Heinrich Brummack, Blalla W. Hallmann, Karl Oskar Blase, Ugo Dossi and Gunter Demnig followed.

As in the funeral forests, which established themselves in Germany 10 years after the inauguration of the Artists' Necropolis, only ash urns may be buried in the necropolis. Indirectly, the necropolis also radiates into the tomb area. Through it, the tomb itself has regained its importance for art, which it lost in the 19th century at the latest.

A New Tombstone 2021

Press release for the inauguration of the clay dome by Gernot Minke

Gernot Minke's gravesite in the artists' necropolis

It is a special gravesite with which the architect and painter Gernot Minke joins the list of monuments by Rune Mields, Timm Ulrichs, Fritz Schwegler, Werner Runau, Heinrich Brummack, Blalla W. Hallmann, Karl Oskar Blase, Ugo Dossi and Gunter Demnig.

For in German-speaking countries, the deceased are traditionally commemorated with grave monuments rather than with buildings. Grave buildings such as crypt buildings or mausoleums are rather rare in Germany. They are among the rarities in the German cemetery landscape. I am therefore all the more pleased that today we are inaugurating Gernot Minke's walk-in sculpture, a purely architecturally conceived work of art. With his dome, he takes up a tradition in dealing with the commemoration of the dead, which in other European countries has given rise to impressive funerary architecture up to the present day, but which in Germany – with a few exceptions – was abandoned in the first half of the 20th century.

Gernot Minke was born in Rostock in 1937. From 1957 to 1964 he studied architecture in Hanover and Berlin. He then worked until 1968 as a research assistant to Frei Otto, whose wide-span load-bearing structures and tent buildings caused a sensation at the time and whose experimental approach to form-finding was to shape Gernot Minke.

During his time as a professor at the University of Kassel, Minke founded the Research Laboratory for Experimental Building and realized more than 40 projects worldwide in low-cost housing and ecologically sustainable construction using earth-bound building techniques. With more than 50 different vault and dome structures made of earth, he advanced to become a recognized earth building expert far beyond Europe.

In view of these successes as a representative of sustainable building, painting was usually overlooked as another of Gernot Minke's areas of artistic creativity. But at the latest in connection with his earthen buildings for documenta 14 "Earth – Space – Sound 1 and 2", Gernot Minke presented himself to an international audience with his meditation paintings not only as an architect, but also as a painter.

The tomb, which was inaugurated in the necropolis on November 4, 2021, is a consistent further development of the domed building and tower that Minke had designed for documenta 14. This is the first time that purpose-free architecture has been created at the Blue Lake, i.e., a structure whose architecture is stripped of all functionality. The dome lacks any superficial purposefulness. It is not meant to house or protect anyone, it is not conceived as an event space or as accommodation, although it could be used accordingly.

The atmosphere of the structure and the experience of the space are thus not shaped by functionality, but emerge and change with the people who enter it, how they engage with the space, its temperature, acoustics, and texture, how they express that experience, or how they use the space.

The circular, quarry-stone entrance prompts visitors to bow as they enter the space. As they rise, a large opaion at the apex of the dome provides a view of the sky. The basalt floor, which slopes down toward the center, connects those present to the earth. The rounded shapes of the bricks made of rammed earth contribute significantly to the special acoustics of the room. In their layering, they are reminiscent of tholoi, Copper and Bronze Age domed tombs with their cantilevered vaults of quarry stones that were common throughout the Mediterranean.

The materials clay, straw and stone support the architectural concept, which in its archaic appearance refers to something supra-temporal and thus opens up the possibility of seeing oneself as part of something larger. These are materials that were not only used for the earliest cultural products, but also appear in creation myths. As materials, they were created through decay and decay. As sediments, they formed the basic substance here, from which new things were created and which, under favorable circumstances, will survive for a long time before disappearing themselves at some point.

With the dome, Gernot Minke has created a place of contemplation which, with its 24 seats, invites visitors to linger for a longer period of time, whether for communal meditation, singing or exchanging ideas. As a walk-in sculpture that can be entered by anyone, Gernot Minke's work of art was intended from the outset to be participatory. At the same time, the dome construction has created a protected space in a publicly accessible location that, as a gravesite, encourages one to come to terms with one's own finiteness or to deal with what one has lost or will lose at some point.

Gerold Eppler

First time a monument 2021

Press release on the inauguration of the monument for Manfred Schneckenburger

Monument to Manfred Schneckenburger inaugurated in the artists' necropolis

Tribute to Manfred Schneckenburger, who died in December 2019 in Cologne: today, Friday, June 18, 2021, a monument to the two-time documenta director was inaugurated in the Artists' Necropolis. It was designed by the artist Ugo Dossi.

Manfred Schneckenburger was connected with the Necropolis in many ways. As early as April 25, 1985, he took part in the founding meeting of the Artist Necropolis support association. Until the realization of Harry Kramer's utopia of a burial place for artists – because a cemetery like the Nekropole was unthinkable in Germany for formal legal reasons until October 1, 1992 - Manfred Schneckenburger supported his friend Harry Kramer on his way through the instances. With the establishment of the Artist Necropolis Foundation in 1992, Manfred Schneckenburger became a member of the foundation's board.

"Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger was instrumental in supporting the idea of the Artists' Necropolis from its inception until his death in 2019 and promoted its implementation. I am pleased that his services to this unique place in the Habichtswald are now honored in a special way and at this place with this monument, which Schneckenburger's long-time friend Ugo Dossi created," said Head of Cultural Affairs Dr. Susanne Völker at the inauguration in the presence of the artist Ugo Dossi, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees Gerold Eppler, other members of the Board of Trustees and local chief Reinhard Wintersperger.

For Manfred Schneckenburger, the artists' necropolis reflected Harry Kramer's concept of art and his idea of artistic autonomy to the last degree. With the Necropolis, Kramer wanted to create the possibility for artists to realize their ideas of art free of any restrictions and away from the museums; in the middle of the forest, at the place where they would eventually be buried. Manfred Schneckenburger felt committed to this idea.

Accordingly, together with the Board of Trustees, he further developed the art project at Blauer See after Kramer's death. For the Board of Trustees, which reconstituted itself in 2020, it was therefore clear that these merits must find visible expression in the necropolis. It thus unanimously decided to permanently honor Manfred Schneckenburger with a monument here on site.

A sculpture by Ugo Dossi will from now on keep alive the memory of the extraordinary exhibition organizer and university professor next to the gravestones of Schneckenburger's deceased artist friends Karl-Oskar Blase and Heinrich Brummack. Ugo Dossi, himself a two-time documenta and biennial participant, was a close friend of Manfred Schneckenburger.

Ugo Dossi's works, which often move in the area of tension between science and art, nevertheless subtly sound out border areas: Be it that they are dedicated to paranormal phenomena, be it that they make the unconscious sensually tangible or the invisible visible.

Dossi's monument to his long-time friend also oscillates between the material and the immaterial. Immovably made of light granite, a chalice towers over the one-meter-high pedestal with the inscription of the deceased's name. Looking at the sculpture, the profile of Manfred Schneckenburger appears in its outline. As a conundrum, Ugo Dossi's work of art thus depicts the gap that Manfred Schneckenburger's death has left in the art world. At the same time, the sitter is visible through the profile and, despite his physical absence, is always present in the necropolis.

City of Kassel