Stefan Pietryga: Pyramid poplar

Visitors to Schwetzingen, the town of culture, are greeted at the station by the trademark of the Potsdam-based sculptor Stefan Pietryga: a slender stylised tree extending upward from a pyramidal base of corroded steel, which awakens associations with an obelisk or totem pole. The artist’s choice of colour might point in this context to “Egyptian blue”, which is among the oldest artificial pigments that is made. Blue symbolises moreover the elements air and water, while the machine-made base represents the complementary elements earth and fire.