Night At The Gallery: Petersberg Apartments

As some of you may know, Galerie Zink is located in a small village in Southern Germany with plenty of space amongst sprawling landscape. In addition to offering contemporary art exhibitions and artist residencies, we also provide holiday homes for people that want to take a break from the city.

Petersberg Apartments consist of two units. One of them is in the old parish house, where Michael actually lives with his family on another floor. This apartment is rustic and quaint, but with all the modern amenities so our guests can enjoy the simple village experience without compromising on the comforts of modern day life. The other one is in the adjoining gallery building, which is sleek and modern, in line with the architecture of our gallery space (read about our architecture here). Located above the gallery space, there is a window that looks straight in there from above. It also offers incredible views from the top of the building across vast greenery. Both apartments are furnished with designer pieces, with a rotating program of art works on the wall, and we pay special attention to details such as heated flooring, fully functioning kitchen, top of the line bedding.

Guest Apartments

Guest Apartments

One of our mottos is art as an experience to share, and this part of our program completes that. We attract all kinds of like-minded people that enjoy our ethos but are perhaps outside of the usual gallery and museum hopping crowd, and we can introduce them to our artists. To live amongst art, and immerse in nature, is a privilege that we are always grateful for, and we are so proud to be able to share this with our guests.

Views from Petersberg Apartments/Galerie Zink

I spoke to Michael for more of his perspective and insights on running Petersberg Apartments alongside Galerie Zink.

What is the vision behind offering guest apartments?

MZ: When you move to a village with 27 souls, off the grid, you have to make sure that you have enough space for friends visiting. The next hotel is 15 kilometers away and after a nice dinner, or little party you want to avoid driving. So from the very beginning it was necessary that we had space for people to stay over. We also invited artists to come and work, as we had empty rooms. And so we first made the apartment in the old rectory more for friends, family, and artists.

But of course our artists didn’t stay there full time and more often friends asked us if they just could come over for a relaxing weekend, and word began to spread to friends of friends! And at one point we we had more and more nice people who asked if the can rent the apartment for a few days, or maybe a short overnight stay on their way from Berlin to Italy.

And they don’t just come here, sleep, and leave. We’ve had very nice encounters with most of them! We spend time together, talk, drink, eat, talk more!

Guest Apartment in parish house with Jana Gunstheimer works

Any interesting encounters in particular?

MZ: Really hard to say, as we met so many interesting people through the guest apartments. And what is also nice, most of them are not related to the art world.

So it is great to have people with all kind of professional background, from different countries and for different reasons. We’ve had hunters, astronomers, police agents, actors, toy producers, psychiatrists, bodybuilders, organic ginger farmers, writers, musicians and investment bankers. Guests from Israel, Brasil, Russia, all over Europe, USA, Peru and Taiwan, Hawaii and Hong Kong. We had people coming for meditation, for work, to relax, to have rendez-vous! All nice!

Guest Apartment in gallery building with Jana Gunstheimer „Sanfte Welle“ 2021 above the bed

Guest Apartment in gallery building with Jana Gunstheimer „Cliché of an artist in his studio“ 2016

How do hospitality and art intersect for you?

MZ: The apartments are not really „decorated“, they are just as we like to live: with the art around us. All the works on the wall are from my own collection and some of them are my favorite pieces.

But as mentioned, most guests are coming for the location, for the nature, and the freedom here. So for many, the „art“ is an added bonus. The pieces hanging on the wall, or the context of a gallery related to the apartments, or the view into the gallery, make people curious. And these are people who might not visit galleries usually! In the apartments there is a lot of art hanging and books about the artists fill the shelves. If someone is interested I am always happy to start a dialogue.

We do not have TVs, so the guests are at the mercy of the art!

Art books!

What about food?

MZ: We have a big garden and the joy to plant and harvest is something we love as a family. It brings us good, tasty, fresh ingredients. And we love that we can share it with our guests. And it’s more than just a salad with peas and tomatoes, it’s an experience that people in big cities never have a chance to enjoy. They can grab a really ripe tomato from the bush and just take a bite, pick the berries and just eat it, or bite into a carrot that was in the earth 5 seconds ago. We love that and we want our guests to enjoy that too!

In a way it is also a bit about arriving somewhere. When I travel I want to be with local people and if possible taste the local food. We do not have a restaurant on site, but we have very local food in the garden, for free! 🙂

Sustainability is a bonus effect, as we like to support local businesses. This is great for reducing the carbon footprint of our food, plus we know exactly what goes onto our plates. Living in the countryside, it really makes you more aware of our practices in sustainability and being kind to the planet that gives us so much. The supermarket might not be as convenient as it is for some people who can just go downstairs, but our solutions for that to go back to nature is something we want more people to share with us.

Fresh produce
In-house distiller
Petersberg Apartments garden
Petersberg Apartments garden with greenhouse in full bloom

Over the last year we’ve had a lot less guests stay over, but we hope that it will resume soon and we can meet you again! Visit our website, petersbergapartments.de or on AirBnB! For more information, contact us here