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“Designs for the underground station in Gelsenkirchen” Alfred Schmidt In 1989, Alfred Schmidt was commissioned to design an underground station in Gelsenkirchen. At this time, the artist already had a long history of drawing in pits and mines that started in 1975. In over 400 drawings, under difficult conditions, he documented the work in shafts and portrayed the mine worker. The drawings exhibited here were created as studies for the underground station. With the “Bahnhof für die Bergleute” [Station for the Miners], using a special construction of two 100-meterlong and four 4-meter-high enamel plates, Schmidt provided an insight into the world under the feet of the visitors. With his drawings, he not only linked respect and fascination for this invisible and very dangerous activity but also political commitment. When the first pit closures were threatened in the middle of the 1970s, Schmidt supported the protests with publications, interviews and drawings. He exhibited his drawings repeatedly in public: among other things, he held exhibitions in mine shafts, hung his drawings on a handcart that he took through the Ruhr district, or had them printed on large-scale transparencies and mounted on ships that traveled along the Rhine. He also gave presentations in schools about work in a mine. Besides this activist potential, the drawings also document the shared recollection of the mine workers, many of whom were migrants. On account of the extreme working conditions in mining, there was a special collegial cohesion among the workers. Artist and product designer (1930–1997). |
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