Faces of Change – City Stories. Aschersleben – Köthen – Halberstadt – Lutherstadt Eisleben. International Building Exhibition (IBA) Urban Redevelopment Saxony-Anhalt 2010 by Cornelia Heller, Anderbeck Verlag – 2008

Frank Nitsche

An art teacher with a passion. A painter with remarkable talent. Wherever he works, the world becomes his studio. Whether in the large, light-filled drawing room of the Stephaneum high above the city, or in his private refuge in the converted attic of his house. Frank Nitsche, who has lived in Aschersleben since 1984, lives for art. He is a quiet thinker, a good listener. He shows his students’ work more quickly and proudly than his own paintings, which, often in rich colors, evoke childhood and the experience of being a child, exploring the boundaries between play and reality, dream and actuality.

He is a wanderer of the world, firmly rooted in the here and now. His desire to foster the artistic and creative development of young people led him to found and, until 1994, direct a painting school in the former district of Aschersleben-Staßfurt. It was a place far removed from the routine atmosphere of a school with its bell and schedule. In 1999, he relinquished his artistic directorship after the “painting school” was incorporated into the district adult education center and pursued further artistic training, studying at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig (HGB Leipzig) and the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale).

Now, within the framework of the IBA (International Building Exhibition), the idea of the “painting school” could be revived. “A ‘youth art school,’ perhaps even as a state-wide project, possibly with a model character, would be a great asset to Aschersleben,” he believes. “Art, music, and theater all in one place, accessible to everyone and open all day – something entirely different can be achieved there than classroom instruction ever could.” The project would be ideally suited to the location that naturally draws the eye from the windows of his drawing studio: the “Bestehornpark Education Center,” the centerpiece of the International Building Exhibition Urban Redevelopment 2010.