Jeffrey James: Cumulus

Five moulded concrete modules are assembled to form a slender column. Their angular, serially repeating forms, which are the result of technically generated processes, interlock perfectly and form a solid structure. With the title of the sculpture "Cumulus", the sculptor, architect and designer Jeffrey James, who was born in London in 1958 and now lives and works in Berlin, refers to the phenomenon of cumulus clouds: their imposing, fractal shapes, which are only held together by tiny drops of water, are in a state of constant, random change due to thermal winds and pressure conditions. In contrast, the sculpture, which weighs around six tonnes, is stable in its place at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences. No human being or changing weather conditions can move it from here.

The immovable sculpture "Cumulus" refers to the attitude of the university management in Mittweida during the National Socialist era. The cosmopolitan technical college, which educated many foreign and Jewish students, had enrolled Gerhard Neumann, who came from a Jewish manufacturing family and later became an engineer and Vice President of General Electrics, as a student as late as 1936. When the Nazis forced the university management to immediately de-register Jewish students in 1938, a notice on the university notice board in 1939 enabled Neumann to emigrate to China. From there, he eventually went to the USA and became the most famous alumnus of the Mittweida Technical Centre.

(Text: Alexander Ochs / Ulrike Pennewitz)