unter anderem Niobe

Together with five other marble heads Niobe belonged to the extremely precious art cargo from a boat that sank on its way from Athens to Rome in the beginning of the 1st century B.C. For over 2000 years piddocks eroded and sculptured these heads as long as these were not protected by mud and sand. They shaped the faces after their own fashion - until the wreck was discovered off the coast of northern Africa in 1907.

Subsequently, archaeologists analysed the heads. The faces were examined to give hints for their identification. Some were even thought to be recognized: the female bust with naked breast and a beautiful face must have been Aphrodite, a head with upward looking eyes resembled the physiognomy of a known statue of Niobe. According to an antique legend Niobe, the mother of fourteen children, made fun of the goddess Leto who only had two children, Apollo and Artemis. As a punishment, the two killed all of Niobe's children, Niobe was turned into stone.

In 1994/1995 the exhibition "The wreck" took place at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn. Here the heads were shown among other finds from the boat - not as rudimentary pieces from statues but as medallions hanging high on the wall in one room. Meanwhile it was recognized that both heads and busts had been made for a worship room of a Heroon, i.e. for a shrine of a mythical or real ancestor. It is believed that among deities like Dionysos, god of wine and fertility, his living partner Ariadne and half gods such as Satyres and Nymphes there even were portraits of the donators of the shrine.

One of the approx. 100 000 visitors of this exhibition is Dirk Otto. Going beyond the findings of science and research, he recognizes the timelessness of these faces - in spite of erosion and the teeth of time. In them he sees a close relationship between the spectators and the ancient people in whose likeness these faces were made. While serving as an image of the ancient people the most eroded head from one of the donators is recognized by Otto as an accurate picture and interpretation of today's people. In Otto's work the marble heads become human portraits: the satyr just becomes the young man flirting with the girls; Niobe serves as a metaphor for the mother per se, whose children are at all times violently taken from her, no matter what the background is.

"Art is fragmentary", says Otto. The fragmentary faces from the marble heads challenge him to construct anew instead of reconstructing. In this point he agrees with Lichtenberg's thoughts: to us the most intriguing surface on earth is that of the human face.