A new exhibition of festival artwork from the Pietzner Art Collection has opened in the Kalmar Gallery at Camphill Soltane. The Pietzner Art Collection features The collection is composed of artwork from Carlo Pietzner, George Kalmar, and MC Richards. Selected pieces from the collection can be seen on the Camphill Research Network. In the past year, the Camphill Academy joined Cornelius Pietzner as an institutional steward of the Pietzner Art Collection, and was thrilled to host an opening reception for THE FESTIVAL at the 2022 Camphill Research Symposium.
We are thrilled to share this 15-minute video exploring the past, present, and future of the collection. Another reception is currently being planned for January 2023.
At the opening, Cornelius Pietzner shared some reflections on the importance of the festivals in Camphill life:
Festivals have always been, and are, an essential part of Camphill life, and belong, in the words of Dr. König, to “a healing pathway towards community building”. They are an essential element of building a culture that lifts us out of our daily concerns and brings us into a realm that not only connects us with the breathing rhythms of nature and the cycle of the living year, but into the realm of spirit beings- meaning the hierarchies- that can accompany us on this journey.
Cornelius Pietzner
The festivals and their meaning were of great importance to these artists, and constituted a continuing source of meaning and inspiration for a goodly part of their work. With their art, they remind us that the festivals and their celebration belong essentially to our community life. For each artist in his and her own way, the festivals lived as imagery and symbol for our innate connection as human beings to the spiritual world. For Carlo, George and M.C. their ‘festival works’, if I may call them that, are scenes or images that help us both pause and reflect and activate something in our own being.
I am very grateful to those who have helped to make this exhibition possible, and also think that this event heralds the beginning of a new step for the collected work of these special artists. We hope that we can more regularly exhibit works, also on different themes and from different artistic phases of the artists- there is so much to show, and gladly, there also seems to be quite a lot of interest!
