Reliefstele

On the riverside of the Alte Fahrt in Potsdam stands the Reliefstele, a sculpture Günter Vogel created around 1970. The work is a relief: figures rise from a flat background, giving the surface a depth the eye can trace from the bank.

The images follow a poem: 'Vergnügungen', which Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1954. Brecht was a renowned German playwright and poet whose work explored social and political themes, yet this poem celebrates humbler subjects. It lists simple joys and everyday experiences, the small moments that reward attention. Vogel gave those lines a rich visual program, turning text into images you take in by looking rather than reading. The details invite you to trace how literature and visual art meet on a single carved surface.

The poem's title translates as 'Pleasures', and that word guides your eye across the figures. Those small delights, raised beside the water, can turn an ordinary riverside walk into a slow reading of Brecht's lines.