KunstWortKunst: Juror Christine Knödler (left) and headmaster Dr. Robert Anzeneder from the JHG with students in front of Imi Knoebel's work "Fishing Yellow" from 2008. Photo: Franz Kimmel
On October 15, a good 50 tenth-graders from the eight high schools in the districts of Traunstein and Altötting met art at the DASMAXIMUM museum in Traunreut with great attention and openness. The occasion was the competition "KunstWortKunst" (ArtWordArt) as a joint project of the high schools Altötting, Burghausen, Ising, Traunstein, Traunreut, Trostberg and, as a guest, Schule Schloss Stein, which have joined together under the aegis of the Technical University of Munich to form the cluster.
Dr. Robert Anzeneder, principal of the Johannes-Heidenhain-Gymnasium in Traunreut - the JHG is a reference school of the cluster and thus coordinator and contact person of the TU - had used the importance and central location of the DASMAXIMUM in Traunreut for the year 2014 to put art and creative writing in the focus of extracurricular education for once. Together with her colleagues from the cluster schools and Dr. Birgit Löffler from the DASMAXIMUM museum, upper school coordinator Theresia Bauer from the JHG developed the concept for the interdisciplinary competition.
At the opening event, the participants were greeted by 3300 square meters of exhibition space with major works of international contemporary art and a short introduction to the history of the museum, which was opened as a foundation in Traunreut in 2011 by Heiner Friedrich, the first high school graduate from Schule Schloss Stein and a patron of the arts. Afterwards, there was an instruction on creative writing by the main juror of the competition, Christine Knödler. She is a literary and art scholar who, as a publisher, reviewer and editor, is one of the leading figures in the field of youth literature. She gave the students a clear and stimulating introduction to free writing, which is unusual in schools.
By the end of the afternoon, the young people had found "their" work of art after extensive wanderings through the museum halls and were working intently on the draft text. "I just wanted to make a few notes," said one student, "and suddenly the page was already full. Her classmate also appreciated the undisturbed encounter with a sculpture: "At first glance I didn't really recognize the work as art, but after a while I realized that there was much more to it!"
After the first judging of the texts in November, in which the author Norbert Niemann, among others, will scrutinize the texts with experts from German studies, art, culture and the press, the final phase will continue until January, in which the winners will be determined and presented to the public in a festive award ceremony.