The sculptor Inge Mahn passed away on June 19 at the age of 79. She studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1964 to 1971 and was represented at documenta 5 at the age of 29 as a master student of Joseph Beuys: at that time one of the first exhibition participations of her still young career as an artist.

Her early works "Schulklasse" (School Class, 1971) and "Glockenturm" (Bell Tower, 1970), which were presented as part of Harald Szeemann's section "Individual Mythologies" on the upper floor of the Neue Galerie, are virtually exemplary of Mahn's artistic working method: Wood, metal, and above all plaster were among the preferred materials of her sculptural work, which explored the relationship between everyday objects, installative sculpture, and architecture in a wide variety of ways.  

The "Schulklasse," a multi-part plaster sculpture consisting of ten school desks that are a bit too small and a teacher's desk, furniture for the rigid system that, although shaken by leftist and anti-authoritarian revolts, continues to adhere to the black pedagogy of the Nazis, the soldierly-national ideology of the Wilhelmine era, was originally created as an examination paper at the Kunstakademie (See: Oliver Koerner von Gustorf: On the Death of Inge Mahn. Nicht einfach so weitermachen, Monopol, 20.06.2023).

Despite her decades of activity, her sculptures and architectural interventions are still far too little known to the public.

Until her retirement in 2009, Inge Mahn was a professor at the Weißensee Art Academy in Berlin.