The break with expectations at all levels is the program of the artist duo Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth: Planned as one of the highlights of the European Capital of Culture year 2010, the opening on "Magic Mountain" was delayed until the end of 2011. Instead of moving on a Ruhr romantic coal slag heap, one finds oneself – separated by thorough sealing – over a special waste landfill of zinc slag. The expectation of being able to approach the peak of the looping is abruptly limited by a metal grid upon walking. Yet it is precisely in these irritations that the allure of the landmark lies, which was already anchored in people's minds by a widely distributed model photo before its construction, and which now, in its form cast from 90 tons of steel, seems almost a bit small. A symbol of the paradoxes of a region in transformation? A hot-dip galvanized inquiry into the possibilities of a contemporary monument? The autonomous work of art remains definitively evasive about the answers.
The flow of visitors up the spiral path to the outdoor sculpture is certainly pleasing: In the first half year, 100,000 visitors have already been counted. The steel and zinc construction already serves as a sought-after backdrop for commercials for the German Chamber of Crafts, a French fashion company, or a Finnish financial service provider.
Completely different views are formed depending on the location and direction of sight from the stair band down to blast furnaces and cooling towers, green spaces, city districts, and the nearby Rhine. A landmark also as a school of attention and as a work of art that is not only to be observed but also to be physically experienced by climbing. The theme of seemingly purposeless stairs leading into space without a destination reminds one of Michael de Broin's work "Revolutions," which lifted an endless stair band into the air on columns in Montreal, or Olafur Eliasson's "Umschreibung," a walkable deformed stair spiral in a courtyard in Munich.
Tiger & Turtle is particularly impressive at night when the handrails of the stairs draw a glowing band in the dark Ruhr sky. Thanks to automatic access technology, the sculpture can now be ascended continuously 24 hours a day and night – only in strong winds is it not accessible.
