Gesprengte Ketten

To mark the start of the 9th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA) taking place this autumn, the sculpture "Gesprengte Ketten" (Blown Chains) by steel sculptor Georg-Friedrich Wolf was erected in front of Villa Rathenau in Berlin-Oberschöneweide.

Susanne Roewer, who together with Prof. Susanne Kähler from the University of Applied Sciences (HTW), is organising the symposium for the study and practice of contemporary cast iron sculpture and is also a sculptor, explains together with host Constantin Rehlinger, head of the Berlin Electrical Guild, that further sculptures will be erected over the summer on the new university campus to be built, thus practically recreating the former connection of the Rathenau Villa to the Novilla (Hasselwerder Villa) on the other bank of the Spree.

The sculpture, consisting of upwardly tapering chains of rods from the work cycle "Iron Age", whose elements were produced in the archaic forging process with fire and hammer, is reminiscent of a rearing torso that pulls its arms up into the air. For steel sculptor Wolf, this is an expression of man's innate urge for freedom.

Here, erected in front of the former residence of the Jewish founder of AEG, Emil Rathenau (father of the democrat and later foreign minister Walther Rathenau, who was murdered by right-wing radicals in 1922), once again understood by the artist as a symbol of liberation.