A Joint Exhibition After Her Death
Opening: November 29, 2015, 2 to 6 p.m.
Venue: Galerie Michels, Beckergasse 1, 53859 Niederkassel, Germany
The exhibition could be viewed by appointment until December 23, 2015.
Gönül Sen-Menzel
Gönül Sen-Menzel was a visual artist and author. In Turkey, after finishing secondary school in 1969, she attended the Istanbul Teachers’ College and graduated in 1972 with a diploma in art. She then worked as an art teacher for nine years. In 1983 she began further studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf), graduating as a master student (Meisterschülerin). From 2009 she also worked on her doctorate while lecturing at the Faculty of Cultural Studies in Paderborn.
Alongside her highly regarded artwork, Gönül Sen-Menzel wrote and illustrated the bilingual (Turkish/German) Vita children’s book series for the educational publisher Anadolu, in which the vitamin Vita travels through the human body. She was also a committed advocate for the rights of children and women.
Death
She died on March 29, 2014, in her studio in Cologne-Volkhoven, four days before her 65th birthday. More than 200 guests attended the memorial service in her studio, which she had called her world and her life. Speakers included her close friend, former TV presenter Mine Selen, former member of the German Bundestag Lale Akgün, Cologne district mayor Cornelie Wittsack-Junge and Prof. Dr. Zehra İpşiroğlu. The guests also heard a poem by Gönül Sen-Menzel, recited by the artist herself in a WDR documentary. Many exhibitions that had already been planned took place after her death.
Alexander Maikowski, Artist from Cologne
He has always felt the need to express himself creatively and to depict worlds, whether through painting, drawing, language or sculpture. The incomprehensible inner workings of things play a central role in his work, and a mysticism expressed in metaphorical language runs through his pieces like a common thread. He came to painting by way of Pop Art, which can still be seen in his pictures today.
Alexander Maikowski is self-taught; later came a short spell as a student of Professor Renate Lewandowski at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences, where he refined his techniques. His powerful motifs, at first glance sometimes dark, are full of life-affirming expression; his socially critical pieces are very humorous, his water motifs full of childlike, playful curiosity – and yet always meant symbolically. Each of his pictures has autobiographical traits, a path from the highest heights down to the depths of the self.
