"Excuse me, do you know where we can find the old town hall?”

“I am not from here either,” I tell the couple who stands there, at the street corner, looking for the way. “But I have a map of Leipzig,” I add, and search my bag.

Without it, I would be as lost at they are. Even though I am living just a mere five hours from here, and am curious for places of history, I somehow never made it to East Germany. Italy and France, Asia and USA, yes, I been there, have seen the Louvre, have visited the Monet museum in Amsterdam, have driven past the house Hemingway lived, and never miss the New Tate when I am in London. But Leipzig, this place of culture, of trade, the city that was once home to Wolfgang Goethe and Johann Sebastian Bach – I can’t say why it took me so long to get there after the border that separated West Germany and East Germany for half a century. Maybe because a part of the border is still there, in the minds of people, maybe because this region has been a white spot on the map in the years I went to school, a forbidden country, a world that had no connection to the one I lived in.

“Now where are we,” I say, returning my attention to the now, to the couple, to the map. A street sign gives the answer: “Barfussgässchen,” it says.

“Bare foot alley,” I translate for the couple.

Even though it is tiny, it doesn’t take long to find the street on the map: it is marked yellow, pedestrian area. Now for the old town hall.
"Rathaus it is called in German,” I tell them, “the house of the council.”

On the map, it simply takes a slide of the finger to get there, across the Markt, then on towards the Salzgässchen, the alley of salt.

“Cute names you have for the streets,” the woman says.

“Not everywhere,” I tell them. We say goodbye. They turn to the left, into the maze of little streets that forms the heart of the city. I leave the baroque façade of the old city hall behind us, together with the Japanese pavilion that formed the roof of a building that once was a coffee trading place, and now was simply – a coffee shop.



The street I am looking for, it carries a name that doesn’t need explanation: Katharinenstrasse. House number 10 is the place i am looking for, the place where the new museum of art has been built, or, to state its original name, the "Museum der bildenden Künste". Now how to translate that. The corresponding title would be ‘museum of fine arts’. Yet the literal translation of the term is: museum of building arts, or: of forming arts, or: of educating arts. For the word "bilden", in German, it has many meanings, with the word family reaching from "Bild" - painting to "Bildung" – education, from “bilden" – to create to “bildend” – forming, inducing a wide range of imaginary connections between all those members of its word family.

The value of such a museum should be self evident, and it should never have been a question whether the building that hosted the paintings, and that was destroyed in the World War II should be rebuilt again, even after all the time. Or rather: especially after all the time, after the history this city went through. Fate, geography and the allied forces had it, that after the war, Leipzig became a part of the Eastern side of Germany, a part of the DDR - the Deutsche Democratic Republic. The new state, it never was democratic but for its name, and it never found the resources to built up the destroyed museum, just like it never established the courage to give art a free space, uncensored, in the middle of this city centre that saw so many different epochs come and go.

I turn around a corner. The museum, it can’t be far now. Yet, instead of seeing an art poster or an entrance gate, I find myself standing in front of a family of wild animals that usually is roaming the shores of Antarctica.

“Penguins!” I state, as if they wouldn’t know that themselves.

Three of them, they are. Sitting there, in front of an iceberg that dangled in the air, and probably could be lit in the night, just like the neon penguins themselves. Obviously the blessings of the twenty first century hurried to arrive here, for better or for worse.

Not that this was news. After the wall came down, or rather: was climbed by the people in the peace movement, companies, funds, banks, churches, media, all came here, to help to built up this region that so long was shut off. Each of them, of course, having their own aims and reasons. Restoration plans were made, development sites defined. Autobahnen were built. It was back then that the idea had risen to rebuilt the museum of art, here in Leipzig.

Money was granted, a place was cleared. Now, to find the right approach of style, of architecture, of setting. How to build, how to "bild", in all senses of the word.

 "They failed," was one of the first things I heard about the museum. "They put this glass cube there, opposed to this row of old trading houses, and it doesn't fit," a newspaper wrote.

A few steps later, right behind the penguins, I see it myself. The newspaper was right. They put this museum block there, and it looks like an architectural alien, there, between the old brick trade houses and the blocks of flat built in DDR times.

A cube of glass, surrounded by anorexic trees that haven’t grown roots yet, silent guardians of a walkway that leads to an entry consisting of glass doors coming in irritating height. High like the trees they are, testing your strength, as they won't open automatically. Inside, a lobby, and then the next pair of doors. Same height. Same manual.

Then the counter. The wardrobe. A line on a poster, “Seven sketches of a new happiness.” A map on the wall, stating the different levels, and different epochs featured, Max Klinger, Max Beckmann and the art from 1900 to 1949 in the first floor, European art of the 15th to the 18th century in the second floor, art of the 19th century in the third floor.

"So I begin in the first floor and walk up through history?" I figure.

"Well, not exactly," is the quizzical answer the woman at the entry gives. She checks my tickets, and gestures to the right and the left. "You can take the stairs, or there is an elevator,” she explains.

"The stairs, they are there?" I ask, pointing to the right.

"And to the left. Whichever way you prefer."

I try the left side. A flight of stairs there, made of wood, mantled with wood. Making you feel like you are walking inside Rubic's cube. Leading to the outer wall, and then turning 180 degrees, to lead to the next level. What an approach, I think, getting more curious for the exhibition rooms with every step.

Then the first floor. And instead of a floor – an empty, open hall. Providing views to the lower level, to the upper level – and to the outside. Enhancing a feeling of being inside the outside. In a place that is formed by the views it takes in, by the facades that form the surrounding, by the hour of day, the light that comes with it, floating in through the huge windows at defined openings, connecting glass with brick, new with old. Framing the view, and thus, providing a new perspective of the brick houses, of the cement buildings we passed on the way to come here. I stood, and looked, and tried different viewpoints, surprised by the something profane can be turned into something artistic by setting it into the right frame.

The frame, of course, is the museum itself. Formed by its function. Formed not to please at first sight, but to provide a variety of frames, openings, reflections.

Then the exhibit. All very reduced. White walls. Clear floors. Indirect light from above. In the first room, Romantic paintings and sculptures, Caspar David Friedrich's "Stages of Life" . In the next room, a marvel statue of Beethoven. Then into the outer hall again, crossing to the other side, turning again, meeting the Classic Modern of Max Beckmann, and painters of the school of Leipzig. Another turn, and suddenly a red wall. A single painting there. The island of death.

This composition of object and background. Of theme and narrative. Leading from one place to the next, like a chain of stages. A green wall. A blue painting. Then white again. Colour. so intensive, when used sparse.

A straight way. A sideway. A sudden view to a sculpture of a woman, three rooms further. The realization that it’s only when you don’t get caught in the paintings right in front of, when you takes the alternate route, that you see this perspective. The sculpture, it looks more mystic from the distance. Standing right in front of it, you are almost too close. Then a change of light. And suddenly, a shadow on the wall, formed by the sculpture, completing its form, and yet, almost forming a whole figure itself.

Those small hidden moments of discovery.

Still, I think of them as coincidences. Like the modern mountain sculpture that connects two rooms. On the far wall, romantic landscape paintings. One of them: "The Peaks of Monte Rosa by sunrise." Showing the same white caps as the sculpture. Painted a century before the modern sculpture was thought of. No leaflet pointing at those connections, though.

But then I see them. The penguins. Made of clay. Sitting there, between the 19th century and the modern. In a small connecting room that opened to the skyline, and thus gave the visitors and the penguins a view - to their friends. The ones that are sitting on the neon sign three floors down, one house further. The three neon plastic penguins.

Taken by the sensation, I forget to read the exhibit tag that contained the name of the artist, and the official name of the penguin sculptures. But then, I already know that I will never forget those penguins, the way they teach to look for undocumented interactions and connections between the objects that surround us, especially those that resist to fit.

It is there that I remember the newspaper critic, that the architects created a museum which doesn’t mend into the surrounding. And I can’t help but think, isn’t that exactly the right thing to do - to create something that doesn't fit? Especially here, in this city of twisted history. And even more so, isn't it one of the characteristics of art, to feel misplaced, alien on first sight - and thus catch our look, draw our attention, and ask for our opinion, our reflection on what we see, while we are walking through this unfamiliar place that offers new perspectives with every step we take.
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