The crowd is big in front of the pub Zum Silbersack on St. Pauli. Around the corner are the first whores, a few meters further on is the Reeperbahn, nocturnal nocturnal revelers, drunken teenagers and shy-looking tourists. But in the silver sack people are not crowding tonight because of the girls, the music or the beer, but because Manfred W. Jürgens has invited to the first Hamburg one-picture exhibition.
At the far corner of the corner, the painter with red curls is sitting, has been signing autographs for hours and shining all over his face. 'Incredible', he calls through the babble of voices, 'I've never seen anything like that in any gallery, a new audience every two hours.' In addition to Jürgens, the boss hanging on the wall, the landlady Erna Thomsen, large-format in oil and the real Erna confusingly similar. Because Jürgens paints so meticulously and lifelike as Alband Dürer or Hans Holbein. "Objective Realism" is the name of this style. He seems somewhat anachronistic in the hectic 21st century art scene. But Jürgens is the cutie. 'Recently somebody said that I'm trend-resistant', he laughingly and repeatedly says in a genius way: 'trend-resistant - that's right.'
Because Jürgens paints not only as detailed as the old masters, he also takes as much time. With infinite patience, he applies layer after layer of (even mixed) colors. For up to twelve hours a day, he sits in front of the canvas with a paintbrush and a paintbrush. Months pass before a picture is finished. To paint that way is actually "a joke to life," says Jürgens with cheerful self-irony. But his wife Barbara, a civil engineer, financially supports him. And so the painter may only listen to his own voice. 'I hope never to get into a situation to change my style because of the market.' Jürgens also falls out of the zeitgeist with his concept of the one-picture exhibition. His painting of cow Soraia he presented on an alp in Switzerland. For the unveiling at 1900 meters, art lovers from all over the world came, alpine farmers and the model itself. When Jürgens confronted the cow with her life-size portrait, this trotted to the canvas and gave her own image a hearty kiss. Anyone who attended this touching event is still talking about it today.
How different is art in contrast to a gallery. Recently he was in the Louvre in Paris, says Jürgens and makes a face. You're in the world's most famous collection of paintings and people do not even bother with it, they rush through, get photographed next to the Mona Lisa and do not even look at them ". That was downright depressing. He does not want to have anything to do with this kind of hectic art enjoyment.
In Jürgens' actions, however, no one is overloaded with impressions. 'I have never seen so many relaxed faces as tonight before a painting,' says Jürgens, pointing to the happy crowd in the silver sack. 'People take their time to look, they talk to each other, nobody is in stress, because he thinks he has to see all the other pictures as well.' The fact that the 86-year-old landlady Erna Thomsen is personally present and that one can talk about art and pub business with the beer with the original Hamburg, naturally enhances the charm of the evening. Because Jürgens has an eye for the inconspicuous heroes of everyday life, and he always paints only people who personally mean something to him. He does not let 'nasties and self-overestimators' on his canvas, he says, for the rest he takes a lot of time.
530/5000 So it's never just about art at its exhibitions, but always about encounters. And because Jürgens has already painted all sorts of characters - goths, prostitutes, actors, journalists - and they like to follow his invitations again and again, you hardly meet anywhere a more colorful audience. In any case, the evening in the silver bag will be a long one, leaving many guests with more memories than many a visit to the Kunsthalle. It is quite possible that the trend-resistant painter sets a new trend with it.
To the exhibition
in the Silbersack
on St. Pauli
The happiness of idleness