Tiger and Turtle – Magic Mountain by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth
Posted in: duisburg, Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth, public and leisure
Walking along this elevated pathway by German artists Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth is like being on a roller coaster.
The 21-metre-high sculptural walkway is named Tiger and Turtle – Magic Mountain and is positioned upon a hilltop in Duisburg, Germany.
A staircase winds across the surface of the steel structure, which spirals around itself just like the fairground ride.
Above: photograph is by Werner Hannappel
Visitors can climb onto the sculpture where it meets the ground, but a loop-the-loop at the centre prevents anyone being able to walk a full circuit.
We also recently published a pavilion that snakes like the tracks of a roller coaster – see that project here.
Photography is by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s some more information from the artists:
Since 13th of November the large-scale sculpture “Tiger and Turtle – Magic Mountain” by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth is accessible for the public. Lately, the sleek curved shape of a rollercoaster highlights widely visible the highest peak of the park-‐like designed Heinrich Hildebrand Höhe in the South of Duisburg.
The dynamic sweeps and curves of the construction inscribe themselves like a signature into the scenery and soar till the height of 21 meters. From a distance the metallic glossy track creates the impression of speed and exceeding acceleration. Viewed from close up, the supposed lane turns out to be a stairway which, elaborately winding, follows the course of the rollercoaster.
The visitor can climb the art work by foot. Although the course describes a closed loop, it is impossible to accomplish it as the looping emerges to be a physical barrier. On top, at the highest point of the sculpture – 45 meters above ground – the visitor is rewarded with an extraordinary view over the landscape of the Western Ruhr.
Above: photograph is by Werner Hannappel
“Tiger and Turtle” refers with its immanent dialectic of speed and deadlock to the situation of change in the region and its turn towards renaturation and restructuring. While the sculpture conveys an absurd twist regarding the inherent expectation of the image created by a rollercoaster, it reflects its own role as potential trans-‐regional lanmark which will be inevitably pocketed as image.
It counters the logic of permanent growth with an absurd-‐contradictory sculpture that refuses a definite interpretation.With 44 x 37 meters base and 21 meters construction height the sculpture is not only one of the largest in Germany, but also a masterpiece of engineering. Especially the draft of the stairs (developed in collaboration with Arnold Walz) consequentially and elegantly winds along the three-‐ dimensional shape that is in every spot different and therefore harbours a so far never accomplished challenge.
Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth create together artistic projects in public space and exhibition venues since eight years. Their works are site-‐ specifically and contextually developed and reflect in a magnifold way the conditions of publicness. Since 2007 the artist duo lives and works in Hamburg where Heike Mutter holds professorship at the Hochschule für bildende Künste.
