1525 – Siegessäule für eine Niederlage

Starting November 22, two “Peasants’ Columns” will stand in the atrium of the vorarlberg museum: Marko Lehanka’s sculpture Bauernsäule Remix 19, 2019, responds to Albrecht Dürer’s design for a Peasants’ War memorial from 1525. Inspired by the German Renaissance artist’s drawing, Lehanka builds a shaky victory column out of jugs, buckets, and tools, crowned by a small, casually smoking figure. In doing so, he creates a counter-monument: a reminder of the 1525 uprising, of the failure of liberation, and of the dignity of those who have little voice in the archives of history—but who, here, between milk cans, horseshoes, and a wig, receive their own defiant memorial.

“When I saw Dürer’s drawing, I was fascinated by the idea of stacking everyday objects into a column. I interpreted it freely and added my own elements, including a text—an excerpt from my computer-generated writings from the 1990s. In that text, a farmer, an innkeeper, and several other characters play the main roles,” says Marko Lehanka, referring to Dürer’s design, and adds with a wink: “...after all, my farmer on top is the only one allowed to smoke in the museum!”

In the atrium installation, Lehanka’s work is juxtaposed with historical references from the region. Archival sources show that around 1525, sparks of rebellion also glowed in Vorarlberg: there were calls for the free election of parish priests, complaints about taxes and land-use rights, and even acts of solidarity with insurgent peasants from the Allgäu. The memory of these uprisings—of power, oppression, and hope—has mostly been passed down in a one-sided way in regional history. Now, 500 years later, it serves as an opportunity for critical reflection on social justice, political participation, and the culture of remembrance.

vorarlberg museum director Michael Kasper explains: “The Peasants’ War of 1525 is part of our history—also in Vorarlberg. Remembering this uprising tells not only of oppression, but also of the desire for justice and participation. With the Bauernsäule, we create a place where history, art, and the present enter into dialogue—and where questions of power, resistance, and hope can be asked anew.”

KUB director Thomas D. Trummer adds: “Dürer’s Peasants’ War monument is quite ambiguous. Does it commemorate the defeated or celebrate the victors? Marko Lehanka’s work transforms Dürer’s pathos into fragility, chance, and humor. Bauernsäule Remix 19, 2019, thus becomes a counter-monument—a remembrance of those who have barely a voice in the archives of history.”

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In 1525, following the peasants’ uprising of that same year, Albrecht Dürer designed a monument. The woodcut, which he included as an illustration in his theoretical treatise Underweysung der Messung (Instruction in Measurement), depicts a column. Its structure is divided by numerical proportions, as if Dürer sought to confine the chaos of rebellion within geometric order. The column is composed of stacked everyday objects: an oven, a jug, a sheaf of grain, and farming tools—crowned by a seated figure, simply dressed, hat pulled low over the face, with a sword piercing its back.

Dürer’s Peasants’ War monument is highly ambiguous. Does it commemorate the defeated or celebrate the victors? Is it a call to the oppressed peasantry to stand up for their rights, or an emblem of the restored power of church and nobility after the suppression of the revolt?

Almost five centuries later— in 1999 and again in 2019— the German artist Marko Lehanka reinterpreted Dürer’s design in two versions. In his Bauernsäule (“Peasants’ Column”), he transformed it into a five-meter-high sculpture—both humorous and critical. Once again, jugs, buckets, a barrel, and found objects are piled up, topped by a bundle of grain. At the very top sits a small, grotesque figure, calmly smoking a cigarette, as if it had survived history itself and turned its bitterness into serenity.

Where Dürer tried to contain the violence of history within a system of measure, Lehanka reveals its surreal afterimage in a world made of remnants and rural artifacts. His work is both homage and reinterpretation: it transforms the pathos of the column—a symbol of victory, eternity, and power—into fragility, chance, and humor. The peasant figure is no hero, but a survivor: a mythical, eccentric witness to a vanished world. Bauernsäule Remix 19, 2019, thus becomes a counter-monument—a remembrance of the 1525 uprising, of the failure of liberation, and of the dignity of those who have little voice in the archives of history, but who here, among milk cans, horseshoes, and a wig, have received their own defiant memorial.

Thomas D. Trummer, October 6, 2025