CHAPEL
WRITE THE FUTURE
Monika Schrickel (1940-2022)
Cut-out, lettering, transparent Japanese paper, acrylic, pigments, 2014
In 2024, an installation entitled "Write the Future" will complete a 20-year cycle at the Wintringer Chapel Cultural Site on the Wintringer farm. Three selected works by the artist Monika Schrickel, who died in 2022, will be on display.
In 2003, curator Peter Michael Lupp was able to persuade her to show a work from her series "Open book. Book projects" at the former monastic site. Symbolically, this also created a link to the skillful writings of the monks, which were created in the writing rooms of medieval monasteries in order to spread the word of God in perfection. The artist intuitively gave the title "Writing the Future" to a piece of fabric inscribed with symbols and signs, which appeared to be almost floating in space, and thus unpredictably provided a symbolic prelude for the following two decades.
Since then, the vision of writing a future worth living through the signs of art has inspired the idea of the Wintringer Chapel Cultural Site. This impulse has run like a red thread through 20 years of cultural work in the former medieval priory church and has been reflected in the most diverse artistic reflections. Reason enough, after two decades, in the "anniversary year 2024" to recall how the artistic valorization took its course in 2003/
From the series "Open Book", transparent Japanese paper, acrylic, pigments, 2016
If we remember that in the Middle Ages manuscripts were read in the priory church of Wintringen, which were created with the utmost precision and perseverance in the writing rooms of important monasteries, we can imagine that this mysterious art form was a source of inspiration for Monika Schrickel's contemporary art.
Against this backdrop, the artist's selected "writings" focus on the symbolic power of writing as a pictorial transfer of an idea that viewers can decipher in the context of the location by means of their sensory perception. The exhibited works thus return spiritual topi to the site and invite the viewer to pose completely new questions about the connections between symbolic visual art and spirituality. Ideally, Monika Schrickel's symbolic works of art not only contribute to a highly aesthetic pleasure, but also stimulate a renewal of artistic worldview. Understood in this way, art can certainly pave the way for spiritual knowledge in order to write it into the future of the present.
Curator Peter Michael Lupp on the intention of the works at the Wintringer Chapel Cultural site
!["Cuneiform", scroll [450 x 100 cm], detail, transparent Japanese paper, acrylic, pigments, 2014](/kunst/perannum/monika-schrickel-zukunft-schreiben/gallery3/wintringerKapelleschrickel_05.jpg)
As founder of the 'Artists group Saar' and as chairwoman of the BBK regional association for many years, Monika Schrickel has left a deep mark on the Saarland cultural landscape and has worked intensively to promote the role of artists in society. In her artistic work, she has carefully approached the subject of 'writing'. The works, some of which are large-format, some of which are long picture flags that she created with acrylic or pigments on handmade or silk paper with incredible patience and meticulousness, are reminiscent of written letters and manuscripts and are always delicate in their pictorial structure as cryptic signs and committed to a fine aesthetic of writing and characters. My mother was amazed at the scripts of the cultures and the variety of graphic signs that inspired her to take them up, deal with them and literally write the future.
Ralph Schrickel on his mother's artistic work
Peter Michael Lupp
Monika Schrickel's writings invite the viewer to decipher them by feeling and aim to create a sensually intuitive perception in the viewer. This art form works more like sounds or music and creates a cross-epochal approach to the monastic site. It is important to realize that in the Middle Ages, the texts and liturgies could only be understood through the art on the manuscripts or wall paintings. Instead of readable messages, then as now, art can use emotions to stimulate a spiritual debate on relevant issues of human existence for a sustainable future. This intention - to use the language of art to illustrate and discuss sustainability - has been fulfilled and has given us amazing new insights time and again over 20 years at the Wintringer Chapel Cultural site. I would like to thank the artist posthumously for symbolically linking these two decades with her art.
Curator Peter Michael Lupp at the opening of the annual exhibition
