Art & history

The Vogelweide as a meeting point for art in the past and in the present.

You can almost hear the lively discussions among scholars, artists, musicians and free thinkers who sat on the terrace in the past. History is at your fingertips from the basement to the attic. In between, a museum of paintings and photographs, bringing together the past and the present.

Walther von der Vogelweide

The name doesn't come from just anywhere, but from very close by: from the Lajender Ried, the birth house of Walther von der Vogelweide who became the most famous German minstrel. With the discovery of his origins, Lajen/Laion and Chiusa/Klausen suddenly became renowned and a cradle of “German national literature”. This marked the beginning of the “Chiusa/Klausen artists' colony”.

Architecture

First documented as a guest establishment in the 14th century, the building then was passed on to various private owners until it became an inn again in 1831. When the birthplace of Walther von der Vogelweide became known in 1867, it was not long before the “Walthergarten” on the river side was opened. Traces of these more than 6 centuries can be found in the house in every corner, in every room and down to the deepest cellar.

The new Vogelweide was designed by architect Hannes Mahlknecht.

Jasmine Deporta

A multidisciplinary artist with a focus on photography, she was born in 1989 in Villnöss, where she grew up. She deals with interpersonal relationships in her works: personal reflections on longings, fears and identity mainly resulting in analogue image worlds with a strong feminine presence. Performative gestures, intimate encounters and everyday symbolism merge into new scenarios that, translated into images, preserve the raw and natural honesty of the subject. Her own free work process allows her to capture unrepeatable moments in an undistorted way and to set them in images.

Heiner Gschwendt

This painter and graphic artist was a regular lunchtime guest of the "Walther von der Vogelweide" inn, where he required his table to be decorated with a white rose. A collection of his characteristic woodcuts can be found in the inn's first dining room. He illustrated works by major German and South Tyrolean writers. The most important focal points of his artistic work were his façade paintings (e.g. the Chiusa/Klausen primary school, 1988). Together with other artists, Gschwendt founded the South Tyrolean Artists’ Association and, in 1987, he was awarded the Walther von der Vogelweide Prize of the Munich "Kulturwerk für Südtirol". He died in Chiusa/Klausen on 27 March 2011.

Chiusa/Klausen artists' colony

The period between 1874 and 1914, after the birthplace of the German minstrel Walther von der Vogelweide was discovered, brought a tourist and artistic boom in Chiusa/Klausen. For 40 years, painters, sculptors, writers and scholars populated the small town of Chiusa/Klausen in the summer months. One of their most popular meeting places was the “Walthergarten” in today's Vogelweide.

Walther-garden © Maria Gall Prader

Walther-garden © Maria Gall Prader