Gönül Sen-Menzel: Köl-Tür at the Arkadas Theater – Open to All Influences

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Ehrenfeld. Necati Sahin is satisfied.

“This artists’ group fits our concept particularly well,” says the head of the Arkadas Theater, which opened on November 7 in the former Urania Theater at Platenstraße 32 in Ehrenfeld. Until the end of December he is showing pictures by the group “Köl-Tür” in the theater’s foyer.

“We are a multicultural house,” he stresses, which is already evident from the program. The cleaning-ladies cabaret “Die Türkinnen” performs its new piece “Gemein sind wir Deutsch”, and the tragicomedy “Der Gast – Misafir” is performed in Turkish with German surtitles. Musicals and satire are also on the program.

The artists’ group “Köl-Tür” pursues a concept similar to that of the theater maker. The German, Turkish, Czech and Polish artists, 14 in all, meet regularly to exchange ideas. The group places particular emphasis on being open to all artistic directions. They cannot be squeezed into a single concept. “The pictures here are an expression of the artists’ individuality,” explains the painter Otto Jaeger. The exhibition includes oil and acrylic paintings as well as pencil drawings. Each artist has interpreted the theme “The Third Dimension” in their own personal way.

In Jaeger’s opinion, a group like “Köl-Tür” could only have come into being in Cologne, because Cologne has been a melting pot of cultures for 2,000 years. Together with Gönül Sen, he founded the group two years ago. “As a teacher I met many foreign colleagues. That is how the contact came about,” he reports.

The City of Cologne has since provided the initiative with a studio in Chorweiler. From there, the artists can organize their exhibitions. After Wipperfürth and Chorweiler, the exhibition in Ehrenfeld is now their third joint event at which they present their latest works.

Alongside everything they have in common, the pictures also show the hostility and prejudice that foreign cultures have to contend with. This is especially true of Turap Tekmen, who can no longer imagine returning to Turkey. He has captured the old town of Ankara in pencil, as well as “Farewell to Solingen”, in which grieving Turks demonstrate in front of the burned-down house. “In our homeland we cannot exhibit and work so freely,” regrets Sen, who graduated from the Düsseldorf Art Academy. That is why she is particularly glad to live in such a multicultural city as Cologne.

Necati Sahin is determined to show a permanent exhibition in his foyer in the future. “Ideally the pictures should hang here for two months,” he says, “and with each new program a new artist will be presented.”