PURPLE PATH art and sculpture trail

The PURPLE PATH connects the citizens of Chemnitz with each other and with the people of 38 towns and municipalities in the region. A sustainably designed sculpture museum is being created in public spaces between Mittweida and Schwarzenberg, Glauchau and Seiffen, Freiberg and Schneeberg. Stars of the contemporary art scene such as Leiko Ikemura, Monika Sosnowska, Jeppe Hein or Michael Sailstorfer meet significant artists from Saxony such as Jana Gunstheimer, Via Lewandowsky and documenta artist Olaf Holzapfel. Chemnitz-based artists such as Johann Belz, Gregor-Torsten Kozik or Michael Morgner remain largely unknown in the West. Their works encounter international classics such as those by Rebecca Horn, who died in 2024, Daniel Buren and James Turrell.

The PURPLE PATH becomes a storyteller: Beneath the surface of the installed artworks, an unknown history of the region is being written, a narrative of mining and industry, Exploitation and profit, marginalisation and solidarity, as well as a story of precarity and innovation that continues to this day. Works by more than 60 artists can be found on industrial wasteland, at railway stations, on riverbanks or even in the still waters of a millrace. They enter into a dialogue with farming and textile museums and form connections with castles or old churches, their organs and artworks. Sometimes they also appear in illustrious nooks and crannies of UNESCO-protected old towns, which provide context and offer many voices as narrators of this history. Walkers along the PURPLE PATH travel down marked country roads or use a well-functioning network of buses and trains; visitors cycle through landscapes shaped by mining, often with wonderful soft contours, or hike from artwork to artwork through thick forests along wild rivers. The colour purple is associated with inspiration, creativity, magic and transformation. A new path will be laid across the region by 2025 - and will continue far beyond.