Würzburg: the art gallery “Spitals” at the Old Main Bridge – Munich

Can you still get them together, all 14 emergency helpers? Saint Barbara was definitely there, as was Christopher, and what about George the dragon slayer? So you ponder to yourself when crossing the Old Main Bridge, while tourists take souvenir photos to the right and left and maybe feel a little reminded of Prague, of the Charles Bridge, only that here not the Hradschin but the Marian Fortress is enthroned over the river. When you arrive at the western bridgehead, you come across the church that was once dedicated to the holy task force: the hospital.

This is of course a Lower Franconian diminutive, because in Würzburg, this city of churches, there are certainly larger places of worship than the “Hofspital zu den 14 Nothelfern”, where the sick were once cared for. And if you stand in front of the rather secular, classical columned portico with the large clock in the triangular gable, it is clear that you will look in vain behind the swinging glass door for holy water or hymnals. Wrought-iron black on ocher says unmistakably: “Spital Art Gallery”.

The summer exhibition “Collage 22” is just coming to an end here. Visitors circle the bright nave, stopping again and again in front of a bold assemblage: a dining table, a light blue quilt, a spiked helmet, western boots, a Russian apron, a Chinese newspaper folded in hopscotch and a button with the inscription “St. Petersburg”. Christine Wehe-Bamberger’s work is entitled “Civilization”. The constant side effects of which probably include wars. And this profaned, altarless little church has a lot to tell about it. Or rather Andi Schmitt, with whom we have an appointment here.

The chairman of the Association of Artists in Lower Franconia (VKU) can probably be called the sexton from the hospitals with some justification, because association work means keeping everything going, “always stuck in the corset of thoughts that revolve around the shop here”, that’s how he describes it. A lot of work, but also a lot of honor. Because the hospital was recently shortlisted in the state government’s “Creative Places in Bavaria” competition, i.e. among the top 12 of at least 180 participants. And on the 100th anniversary of the Artists’ Association in 2019, one of the region’s most important cultural institutions was showered with praise from all sides. Mayor Christian Schuchardt said in his laudatory speech about the hospital: “one of the most beautiful and most visited galleries in Würzburg and the surrounding area.”

The artists themselves mixed the mortar and renovated the church ruins

The fact that you can walk around between works of art with Andi Schmitt and not sit quietly in a pew has something to do with that March 16, 1945, when the devastating bomb attack on the city also reduced Würzburg’s churches to rubble – history is so perverse and ash sank. The hospital, originally built in 1498 as a court hospital and then rebuilt in the classicist style in 1793/94, was also hit. “The amazing thing was that the facade remained almost undamaged, but the roof, of course, was broken,” says the artist. The city that now owned the church ruins let the monument fall into disrepair. Also all around in the so-called Mainviertel (“Meeviertel”) there was a gaping wound for a long time.

The little church was one of many junk properties in Würzburg until the end of the 1960s when members of the VKU came up with the idea of ​​turning the hall into a place of art. The city gave her go and off we went. “At that time there was a generation of artists who could all mix mortar and plaster, and there were also many architects in the club,” Andi Schmitt knows from the annals. They then deliberately left the fragmentary character of the room, bricked up the Gothic pointed arch windows on the north side, and put in a makeshift roof.

“At the first exhibition in June 1968, the windows on the south side were still without glass, so pigeons are said to have flown in during the show,” he says. But who cared, the Artists’ Association finally had a permanent home. These makeshift repairs were only to be followed by more substantial renovations in the 1980s and 00s. And plans for a hotel with a passenger elevator up to the hussar cellar of the festival, with the hospital as a foyer. huge protest! “Nothing came of it, reason prevailed in the end,” says Andi Schmitt.

Despite its centuries-old history, the Spitäle with its high, white walls today has all the characteristics of a modern, functional gallery. The gallery is impressively simple, a construction made of steel and glass above the entrance, which can be extended almost to the chancel. Huge ceiling sails also hover above the nave. Andi Schmitt claps his hands. “Do you hear that?” You didn’t count exactly, but it should have been four seconds of reverberation time. “I wouldn’t let a drum duo play here, it would burst your eardrums,” he says. But the room for chamber music, for quiet, soft sounds, is wonderful.

Schmitt also takes care of the music program in the hospital, which is simply too special to just hang pictures on the walls. He can seat almost 100 people here. You can hear that music is a matter of the heart for him, which could only take place to a limited extent during the pandemic. Now there is a lot of catching up to do, “the pipeline for concerts is totally blocked, I could organize one here every day”. Incidentally, the prices for concerts in hospitals are moderate, and the association regularly awards free tickets via the Kultur-Tafel Würzburg.

There is also music in the hospital, because it would be a shame to only hang pictures here

Andi Schmitt has been the chairman of the four-member board since 2017. Although the VKU can no longer use the hospital free of charge, but has to pay rent to the city, the association affords a few employees within the scope of its possibilities; Supervisors, the caretaker, the cleaner. Above all, however, an office that relieves the board of directors so that they can concentrate on conceptual work. Today the VKU has around 200 members, half sponsors, the other half active artists. They are predominantly contemporary in the classic genres of sculpture, painting and drawing, and photography is also strongly represented. Media art, however, says Schmitt, may be missing in hospitals. It itself has a firm opinion that these young creative people are too noncommittal, too self-absorbed. That’s how he sees it.

Within the association, which was founded in 1919 as the Association of Lower Franconian Artists and Craftsmen (Vukuk), there have always been strongly diverging currents, as a look at the anniversary chronicle reveals. Still largely conservative in the 19th century, people initially had difficulties with avant-gardists such as the impressionist Max Slevogt or the widely networked Gertraud Rostosky, who took part in exhibitions of the New Munich Secession. The expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who was born in Aschaffenburg, and Emy Roeder from Würzburg also once belonged to the artists’ association. The dawn of a new artificial language also came to an abrupt end in Würzburg in 1933. In order to avoid being brought into line, so the club narrative was for a long time, they “went to sleep” during the brown years. However, more recent research has brought to light members’ involvement with the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts.

After the Second World War, the company was re-established under the name VKU. Today, the artists’ association sees itself as part of urban society, open to current discourses, for example with exhibitions on climate change. The hospital is also a place for podiums, be it on mayor elections or on the subject of doping, students can show their semester shows here, and the exhibition accompanying the Würzburg Africa Festival has always taken place in the gallery for years. There are regular readings and film series. All in all, Andi Schmitt sees his association “on an equal footing” with the important political and cultural institutions in Würzburg, such as the Museum im Kulturspeicher.

And the clergy, still a factor in this old episcopal city, has cast an interested, mild eye on its former Nothelfer church, which attracts up to 25,000 people a year, more than many a church. “Over there is the center of clerical Würzburg, here the secular, we live harmoniously together,” says Andi Schmitt. He’s standing at the gallery gate, through the glass door you can see straight as a bolt over the bridge to the cathedral.