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Neandertal valley: Sculpture trail "Human traces"

- English -

The artistic trail Human traces is a sculpture trail in the Neander valley, starting at the Neanderthal Museum, which ten internationally renowned artists have designed.

The sculptures demand a self-reflection and own view of nature. The works are located on a 1.5 km long circular route, along the stream Düssel, from the Neanderthal Museum to the ice age game reserve and back on the other side of the Düssel.

Many of the works have to be actively discovered. An audio guide to the sculpture trail is available at the cash desk of the Neanderthal Museum. The flora is also well worth seeing. In addition to a diverse mixed forest, there are numerous wildflowers to admire.

Immediately to the left of the museum is the work that visitors immediately recognize at the start of the circular route. A series of growing Neanderthal silhouettes cut out of steel plates, seemingly to follow one after the other.

Ben-David used a famous popular scientific drawing of the Neanderthal man from a 1930s Time Life magazine as a template and cut it into industrial steel plates.

Now the sculpture path crosses the busy street. Right behind the Neanderthal kiosk, Volker Friedrich Marten, at the confluence of the Düssel and Mettmanner stream, created a signpost from a burnt-out oak.

The flowing water as a metaphor for the passing of time and the Neander valley itself give the title WOHER-WOHIN a spatial dimension in addition to the spatial dimension.

In a former quarry overgrown with vegetation, Anne and Patrick Poirier created a picture for the memory of the world. They call their work MEMORIA MUNDI, which, above all, becomes a metaphorical image through two foreign elements, an arrow and a brain.

The Poiriers, who deal with places of collective memory, left the quarry as an archaeological site. The picture is intended to remind us of our cultural roots and their preservation.

Passing the Stone Age workshop building, you first follow the signposted circular route to the Ice Age wildlife enclosure. Established in 1935, only three animal species live on the 23-hectare outdoor area today:

Heck cattle (representative of the extinct aurochs), bison and Konik horses (representative of the also extinct tarpan), which were already part of the Neanderthal hunting prey.

The path itself is easy to walk and is mostly wide. Children are also very happy to find their path a little off the way. The old stone quarrys are particularly suitable for climbing.

The Düssel stream remains a constant companion, which winds closer and further away through the original, almost wild forest. Fallen trees lie to the right and left in the undergrowth. It is pleasantly cool here.

Magdalena Abakanowicz's work stands on a wooden box in a nettle clearing behind the Stone Age workshop building: the sculpture of a four-legged animal. The work is entitled MUTANT.

It does not represent this or that animal, it has neither eyes nor face nor character. The artist created the metaphor for this being from sheet steel.

As a teenager, Jaume Plensa was fascinated by the Neanderthal man and his world, without knowing that there even was a place with this name. In the clearing diagonally opposite the mutant is his aluminum question mark titled SEELE (Soul).

Plensa has created an abstract symbol of our written communication system as a sculpture. For Plensa, the question of the soul is the question of the "last things", the nature of human.

The work BEING in the Düssel stream comes from Antony Gormley and is probably often overlooked by visitors. For the Neander valley he created an original cast iron cast of his own body, which, however, does not stand upright like a traditional sculpture, but was laid flat in the course of the Düssel stream.

With a little luck, today's viewer will discover the sculpture when the water level in the Düssel stream is low or the water is clear. Against the background of the Neander valley as a prehistoric site, the sculpture also appears as an archaeological find of the future.

If the visitors walk back to the museum on the other side of the Düssel stream, they encounter an enormous limestone block on the side of the path, which looks like a natural stone from a distance.

If you step closer, you can see that the block has actually been edited. Klaus Simon created a document of human traces of processing from the limestone. If the visitor continues, he will walk over the molded bronze spiral, which is embedded in the path.

Giuseppe Pennone has taken the project "Human traces" at its word. For one quarry on the Düssel stream, Penone designed a hedge from the hornbeam that occurs naturally here, the Neander valley hedge.

Unfortunately, the lighting conditions at this chosen place are so unfavorable that the hedge only grows poorly despite multiple plantings.

The bench on the edge of the path above the former ford through the Düssel stream is also a sculpture. As such, this small, humble work of art by Finlay can easily be overlooked. In his Bugatti Bench the verse is engraved "BARE STREAM RACING LIKE A BUGATTI".

Attentive viewers may be irritated by this strange inscription. Finlay occupies places with words that are often chiseled into simple objects. The viewer receives a quasi-literary instruction manual for the respective location from Finlay.

Unexpectedly, a sign appears under a protective horse chestnut that indicates a work that, however, no longer exists. A large basket weave, similar to a weaver's bird's nest, hung there under the curved branches.

Wickerwork and chestnut have entered into a symbiosis at this place. The artist Nils-Udo called the five-meter-long work HABITAT. Nils-Udo develops shapes that look natural at first glance.

As the path continues, the attentive hiker will come across small surprises. If the children still have energy after all these discoveries, they can let off steam in a large playground on the banks of the Düssel stream.

The sculpture path is free to discover and experience 24/7.