@christopherb858: Wagner's Dog, 2004 Plastic, 80 × 40 × 70 cm / 31½ × 15¾ × 27½i Installation of 800 dogs at every park bench of Bayreuth during the Bayreuther Festspiele 2004 Richard Wagner had a very close affinity to nature. Walking and hiking were part of what inspired him to be able to view the world in context. Dogs were his companions. Wagner's close relationship to animals throughout his life is documented, among others in correspondence with Minna Wagner, Mathilde Maier, and Mathilde Wesendonck, as well as in Cosima Wagner's diary entries. In a letter to Ernst von Weber of 1879, Wagner explicitly vented his anger against "science's torture chambers", and by doing so became one of the earliest opponents of experiments on animals. Ottmar chose the Newfoundland dog, one of Wagner's favourite breeds, as the artistic material for his plastic sculpture Wagner's Dog. Some 800 dogs, approximately 70 cm (27½ inches) in height and executed in black plastic, were positioned at every park bench in Bayreuth. For Ottmar, Wagner the man can thus be observed in all his humanity by means of his relationship to animals. "The chroniclers of Wagner's life have never succeeded in revealing him as a likeable human being," says Hörl. "My concern here is to break through the cult of Wagner to reveal Wagner as a human being, to bring him down from his artistic Olympus." As a symbol of human sympathy and empathy, Wagner's Dog presents Wagner as an endearing human being, who, like every other person, was also part of an everyday social structure.

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Tuesday 06 October 2026 00:02:08 GMT