Hafen 77, Kiel, Germany, 1989

1989 – Steel sculpture ‘Hafen 77’ by Felix Fehlmann in Kiel, Germany. Photo © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com


The story behind the image

Art or Trash?

It happened a while ago. The friend from the south wanted to see the water where we nordic folks live. Said and done. Shortly after the guest from Bavaria had uttered his wish, we drove along the Hindenburgufer. We admired the seaside and I smartly downplayed certain issues with the water quality.

But then came the question that every visitor of Kiel asks at some point in time: “What is this rusty thing over there?” I knew it was coming, so I glanced at the water and asked hypocritically: “What do you mean?” – “Over there, on the other side!” The visitor pointed to the orphaned monument on the other side of the street. I said: “Uh. That, er, is an expression of our maritime culture and proof for the fact that art is perfectly possbile near the water. The monument is adequately greets seamen from far away countries. A rusty body of a ship is a good match, isn’t it?”

Steel sculpture ‘Hafen 77’ by Felix Fehlmann, Kiel, Germany. Photo © 1989 Mark Zanzig

The Bavarian guest fell into a reverent silence. My explanation seemed to be credible and I started to rave now. “Haven’t you noticed its majestic form? And the beautiful material? Iron plats, tanned by wind and weather and held together by ship tows. That’s unique for Kiel.”

Meanwhile, the visitor from Bavaria had found another admirable object: the Gorch Fock, the prominent German tall ship based in Kiel. And while we were there, at the Blücherbrücke, we quickly visited the seals. But what was that? Framed rocks? These must have been new. “So, is this also an expression of your maritime culture”, mocked my guest. Oh my. I needed an explanation, and quickly…

Framed rocks at the Kiellinie in Kiel, Germany. Photo © 1989 Mark Zanzig

I said: “Well, take a different viewpoint,” and tried to win some time. “Imagine, the triangles are sails of surfboards. And the rocks are people. And when such a heavy guys surf, they will drown. Don’t you see the maritime protest against our affluent society?” Now the ball was in my friend’s court. “Well, you could be right,” he finally admitted.

To be continued


The high resolution image

Capture DateSpring 1989
LocationKiel, Germany
CameraCanon AE-1 Program
Image SourceIlford FP-4 Negative Film
Digital Image SourceEPSON Perfection 4870 Photo
Digital Image Source FormatTIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image FormatJPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Dimensions6555 x 4370 Pixels
Copyright© by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s