Kassel

At the end of our winerholidays in 2019-2020, I had a special encounter with Wolfgang Henkel at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe in an enormous park in Kassel, Hessen. Wolfgang is known for his photoproject of the Germany photobook of Kurt Hielscher that resulted in a then&now book with Kurt Hielscher's work in Germany that he had released in the summer of 2019.

Though the weather was really really bad, I tried to make the two photos here that Kurt Hielscher made in 1924. Luckily I found a great guide in Wolfgang, who, ofcourse, had been here already for several times to rephotograph the two photos himself. he knew exactly from where I should take this photo and that was especially helpful for me concerning the terrible weather that day. It was still a 15 minute walk through the rain and I only took 2 minutes to take this photo and I think the result is fine. After that, we had a drink and good talks inside of the Schloss.

What stands out of course, though it is not so well visible anymore because of the grown trees, is the vanished dome. At the beginning of 1945 the central part of the building was destroyed by a bomb. It was rebuilt in 1968–1974 and transformed into an art museum. The dome, however, was not rebuilt. Tha Schloss as well as the enormous park is impressive and I can imagine how nice it would be to stroll around here on a sunny day in the spring.

Wolfgang and I talked about Kurt Hielscher, his work, our ambitions and ofcourse our mutual fascination for Kurt Hielscher's work and why we are so triggered to take his photos again. We did not find one clear answer except for the fact that it is somehow satisfying each time we succeed next to several other reasons: we both think that Kurt Hielscher's work deserves more attention, we both like this way of discovering new places, the combination of the old and the new photo always tell a story, a story that also become our story when we visited the place and felt its history.

At the beginning of 1945 the central part of the building was destroyed by a bomb. It was rebuilt in 1968–1974 and transformed into an art museum. The dome, however, was never rebuilt. The Schloss as well as the enormous park is impressive and I can imagine how nice it would be to stroll around here on a sunny day in the spring. But today it was a grim and wet winterday. Wolfgang Henkel and I ran through the rain to the Tempel of Apollo. It was raining cats and dogs and he knew where it was, because he had been here before for his Kurt Hielscher photoproject. With the master himself in my back, my family somewhere lost in this overwhelmingly big park and the disastrous weather I understand why I forgot to bend my knees just a little bit more to get the Schloss a little bit higher on my photo (the missing dome is not an excuse). 

As a gift, Wolfgang gave me some old articles about Kurt Hielscher with photos of him.

Below: View on Schloss Wilhelmshöhe.