Manfred pernice biography channel

Manfred Pernice

Biography

I remember when Manfred Pernice came to visit me shortly after he won the Piepenbrock Prize for Sculpture in 2000.
“I live right above Frau Dieu”, I said with a certain sense of local pride as I gave him directions to my apartment.

I wasn’t sure if my neighbour downstairs was French because she was stone deaf, as I had discovered one afternoon after she appeared at my door frantically gesturing what I eventually understood to be a leaking pipe.

This discovery led not only to a visit from the plumber but also to an astonishingly simple religious dogma: God was a woman, but she could neither hear our prayers, nor respond to them.

There was another woman living above me.

Her name escapes me, but I remember how she would waltz impeccably dressed down the staircase with a smile on her face and a lilt in her greeting, as if every day were a summer holiday, no matter how cloudy and cold. But one afternoon, she too appeared frantic at my door