TREE CONNECTIONS 11.05 11.07.2021 - An Art and Exhibition Project by Klaus Littmann - Kulturstiftung ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
An Art and Exhibition Project by
Klaus Littmann
TREE CONNECTIONS
from Christian Friedrich Gille to Christo
11.05.– 11.07.2021LIST OF DISPLAYED WORKS VITO ACCONCI ANONYMOUS ANONYMOUS
(1940–2017) China, 17 th century (Ming & Qing dynasty)
In the following all descriptions are
listed chronologically in alphabetical Model for War Memorial in the Middle Komposition mit morschem Tree root sculpture for meditation
order following the surnames of the of the Trees, 1984 Baumstamm, around 1820 made from different parts, H: 60 cm
exhibiting artists. Mixed media, Plexiglas, wooden box, Oil on paper, 34.5 × 27.2 cm
43 × 116 × 119 cm The material astonishes with its multiple
Texts on the exhibits: The small format is the key here. Views levels of reality. There is root wood at
Regine Bungartz and Isabel Zürcher “It’ll grow over in time,” or “Let’s just wait from above and below converge so the base, looking as though churned by
for the dust to settle.” These sayings, closely that our own point of view begins stormy seas, riddled with unpredictable
© 2021 KBH.G often reeled off in passing, imply that a to waver. Here is a tree revealing its whorls and shadowy hollows. A bough
catastrophe has gone before. Getting innermost secrets while—like a morbidly marked by notches rises from it like
over it will take some time and depend evocative eruption—it shoots up into antlers, obstinately pushing upward in its
on the reliability of natural cycles. In the the sky. Its consistency seems mossy, urge to grow. In the dynamic interaction
face of war and annihilation, plants are with thin shoots disappearing into the of the two elements we see a windswept
bearers of hope. Eucalyptus trees grow blue ground, hopelessly trying to tether tree standing on an exposed crag: Who
quickly and their leaves form a canopy the overpowering creature. The soft is holding whom, what has this wood
that is at once dense and airy, while greens and browns, mottled and porous, witnessed in its long life and how old
their slender, branchless trunks enable are reminiscent of a painter’s palette, will it still become?
them to be planted in closely packed intermixing flatly with streaks of impasto
rows. Vito Acconci’s War Memorial paint. Such primeval power from an
nonetheless leaves room for architec- anonymous hand heralded the art of
tural elements to be placed around the Surrealism in the nineteenth century.
roots. Seating conforming to the order Max Ernst would later call his pictorial
of the forest provides a shady oasis for fantasies intermingling massed roots,
commemorating the countless unknown masks, and monsters “swamp angels.”
departed.ANONYMOUS HANS ARP PI-RO AUTENHEIMER STEPHAN BALKENHOL JOSEPH BEUYS
(Mali, 10 th –15 th century) (1886–1966) (1933–1997) (* 1957) (1921–1986)
Small door, ironwood, 35 × 23 cm Figure-Fleur-Chute, 1951 Untitled, 1962 Katzenfrau (Cat Woman) 4, 2004 von hier aus 7000 Eichen monumental sculpture at the Academy
Relief, 27 × 21 × 4 cm Wood, metal (chainmail), Wawa wood, colored, 172 × 39.5 × 30 cm (Mitwirken durch eine Baumspende) in Düsseldorf. Beuys responded to the
It is difficult to discern how human and 22 × 38.5 × 25 cm 1982 “forest of sculptures” he re-called from
animal relate to one another here, but Constellation ‘Amphore’, 1955 Complete with pedestal, the nude statue Poster, offset, signed the days of the Nazi regime with the
they both emerge from the same wood. Relief, 31 × 21 × 4 cm We are asked to accept the boards as is life-sized—a stylite that looks almost aspiration to set social processes in
Whoever it was that released them so they are: too short, too long, sometimes dainty, in a tranquil pose. Splinters and On March 16, 1982, Joseph Beuys motion through art. This idea was new at
straightforwardly from the grain, it is Working in relief—not quite sculpture riddled with nails. Pi-Ro Autenheimer furrows in her surface keep her at a planted on the edge of Friedrichsplatz in the time, as were Beuys’s art “actions,”
clear that carrier and sign, ground and and not quite picture—Hans Arp tried for offers found objects as a sculptural col- distance, bearing witness to the artist’s front of the Museum Fridericianum and proved highly attractive to students
figures are one. The old door from Mali decades to strike different balances: lage, undramatic and rapidly assembled. manual labor. Balkenhol carves and the first tree for his action 7000 Oaks. in particular. Resistance is not futile
reveals once more the fascination felt between presence and absence, here Horse and rider exhibit a crude whimsy hews each of his figures from a stake and no institutional rule is sacrosanct.
by many modernist European artists and there, shadow and light. In his that would be hard to top. Harking of African Wawa wood. They display the Joseph Beuys and Bernhard J. Blume, 7000 Oaks was what Beuys called his
for artifacts from far-off continents and hands, even solid wood gives the impres- back to the portentous tradition of the characteristic traces of his work openly, Kontakt mit Bäumen, 1982 Print on contribution to the 1982 documenta in
cultures. Paul Klee comes to mind with sion that the forms could shift again at equestrian statue, they are the diamet- even flagrantly. A human body with paper, signed by Beuys and Blume Kassel, with the subtitle “City Forestation
his reduced figures—coming together any moment. It’s all very simple. And rical opposite of bricolage: Astride his a cat’s head would normally strain the Instead of City Administration.” Seeing
and diverging again in their loose everything is in motion, dream figures magnificent steed, the proud command- imagination, but the soft wood fuses 7000 Eichen, documenta VII, 1982 more and more high-priced status sym-
distribution across the picture plane. and metamorphoses on a wooden game er was for centuries the embodiment of them in peaceful coexistence. A long Black-and-white offset, graphite bols circulating in the art market, Beuys
Witnesses to bygone days seem to have board. A vegetable form or the outline state and military power. All that remains cultural history demonstrates how con- signature, 14.7 × 10.5 cm planted tree after tree in Kassel—not
been excavated out of this wooden of a human body? Top and bottom seem here of such omnipotence is a frail ducive this organic material is to convey- for sale and with the participation of a
panel, the tool marks intermingling with interchangeable; for Arp, amphorae are skeleton, like a rickety chair that would ing a vision, releasing never-before-seen Rettet den Wald, 1972 public that is likewise far removed
the fibers of the material. Depending related to female forms. Every element is not even support the weight of a child. beings from its core. flowing, other times Offset on paper, signed and numbered, from art.
on the fall of light, the figures look as animated and personified; positive and As a throw-away relic of the comman geometric edges, or was it chance and 41 × 29.3 cm
though engraved while begging us to be negative are interdependent, either tec- der’s armor, the chainmail likewise the magic of their inventors?
remembered: We engrave in our memo- tonically like a blueprint for architecture, undermines any gesture of menace, its “Save the forest!”: This 1972 appeal
ries things that should be preserved and or perhaps like the contour of a sand- rattling long since silenced by rust. has lost none of its relevance. Armed
not lost. bank spared by the waves. Has the wood with brushwood brooms, the group sets
grain inspired the sometimes flowing, off, Joseph Beuys (with hat) in the lead,
other times geometric edges, or was it a visual artist, founding member
chance and the magic of their inventors? of the Greens Party, and professor ofFRANZ BURKHARDT MIRIAM CAHN ALEXANDRE CALAME CHRISTO
(* 1966) (* 1949) (1810–1864) (1935–2020)
Rue Chateau de Graaf, 2020 quickly by a masterful hand, overlooks a Untitled, 1989 Fallen Tree – Struck by Lightning, Wrapped Trees appearance, had the effect of revealing
Pencil and ink on paper, section of the wayside. The artist zooms Charcoal on paper, 58.5 × 58.5 cm ca. 1840 Project for the Fondation Beyeler, for the first time the sculptural power of
26 × 20.7 cm back here to the nineteenth century, Oil on paper on canvas, 29.4 × 51 cm Riehen, Switzerland, 1997 their crowns. Transforming the Champs-
evoking images of longing. Or does this Drawing is touch, the hand coming Pencil, charcoal, pastel, wax crayon, and Elysées into an avenue of surreal-looking
Böschwey, 2021 leafless growth instead capture a scene into contact with charcoal and paper. Tronc d’hètre, c. 1849 fabric sample, 106.6 × 244 cm fabric creatures has so far remained a
Pencil and ink on paper, of the impenetrably dense present? Traces of the working process are part Oil on cardboard, 45.5 × 33 cm utopian dream—a symbolic act of protec-
40.5 × 28.3 cm of the motif. Unadorned and for that Wrapped Trees tion for the city’s trees.
all the more striking, a lone small tree The almost tender precision in the Project for the Avenue des Champs-
Container 2 Kubik, 2020 –2021 juts willfully into the field of paper. The rendering of foliage, trunk, and moss Elysées, 1987
Mixed media, plywood, Styrodur, branching packs emotional power. Firmly fails to distract from the drama. The Color lithograph with collage of
Styrofoam, paint, anchored in soft charcoal black, short trunk lies rent open, its insides erupt- transparent polyethylene, thread, staples,
12 × 200 × 210 cm lines fan out straight to form the figure. ing in all directions like flames. Badly felt marker, 71 × 56.5 cm
Vehemence and tenderness could hardly wounded, the sturdy tree has been
There’s not much left of the barn, the be more closely aligned. Basel-based forced to surrender to the lightning The plans never fail to impress. Christo
wooden wall, or the roof truss. A motley artist Miriam Cahn has attracted interna- strike. Alexandre Calame’s trees are and Jeanne-Claude knew just what they
assortment of boards, painted and tional acclaim for her relentless, polit- more than mere nature studies. Their wanted to do and brought many an
gone gray over the years, the rubble of ically motivated visual language. Like knotted boughs, mottled bark, and ambitious idea to fruition through draw-
a wooden structure, is now heaped in a seedling of her art, drawing strength subtle torsion bear witness to long lives, ings, sketches, or collages. And they
a container. Used, spent, unusable, and from refusing to ingratiate itself, the tree testify to their defiance and majesty, not infrequently did so in the face of
ready for removal. Is art now trying defies the dusty winds. demand our respect and inspire official resistance. Each visualization,
to pillory our material consumption? wonder. We can sense the crown of designated as a “project,” speaks for
Is it suggesting that the patina of aging the beech tree towering far above us feasibility and anticipates what has since
roof battens makes for a modern-day by the way it filters the fall of light. become, and will remain, an indelible
painting? In the drawing, the chaotic memory. For example the 178 trees on
jumble, several times removed from its the Berower estate in Riehen that were
natural origins, returns to its roots. A each wrapped in a polyester cocoon in
tangle of intractable branches, sketched 1998. Their isolation, indeed their dis-TONY CRAGG HANS EMMENEGGER SONJA FELDMEIER AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH GILLE
(* 1949) (1866 –1940) (*1965) (1865–1931) (1805–1899)
Level Head, 2005 Waldbild, before 1934 The Peepul Tree, 2020 A lake view (Lake Keitele), 1905 Gestürzter Baum, um 1830 in his studio, probably in order to paint
Wood, 91 × 65 × 60 cm Oil on canvas, 46 × 31 cm Video, 25 min 13 sec Oil on canvas, 47 × 36.5 cm Oil on primed paper, 29,3 × 40 cm it later in oil in a different format. There,
his senses zeroed in on new details. His
No living body is ever completely at rest, What is surface here and what is trans- The felling of the tree is violent; it is Akseli Gallen-Kallela sets two trees Baumstudie freier Äste, um 1840 brushstrokes are sometimes impetuous,
but not many rotate as exuberantly and parent? Are we looking at a forest, or physical and unintentionally sculptural. against a luminous backdrop at the pre- Oil on paper, 26,4 × 26,8 cm quickly sketching treetops almost im-
yet strictly horizontally as Tony Cragg’s does the image spirit us away into For days on end, a team of several men cise moment when darkness is about to pressionistically. The forest seems utterly
Level Head. Neither column nor torso, a world of visions and dreams? Warm sawed, hacked at, and dismantled the swallow up all the colors. A pine bough Waldstudie, um 1840 windless—as if it had grown there pri-
the figure tries to capture at once both sunlight casts the silhouettes of trees sturdy tree shrine in the northern Indian hangs down, protruding into our field of Oil on paper on cardboard, 53 × 38,5 cm marily for the benefit of our observation.
inner turbulence and outward velocity: on the tall trunks of their companions, city of Haridwar. The old giant had vision. It is answered by a filigree birch Looking more laid out than torn out of
Does it perhaps evoke a drastic state raising almost symmetrical branches to make way for the main road to be stem pushing its way up from the lower Baumkrone gegen blauen Himmel, the ground, two trunks nestle together
of personal agitation? Or perhaps the out of the darkness like a slender cross. widened in advance of the pilgrimage edge as a delicate counterpart, signaling um 1850 like legs, the protagonist having left the
frozen trail of a frenetic dance or a vortex Hans Emmenegger camouflages this festival. Sonja Feldmeier captured the spring and renewal. Like the rosy sunset Oil on handmade paper on cardboard, picture field, caught up in the cheerful
in swirling water? “I am interested in artful lighting with the pretext of a event with her camera, condensing it with lake and forest in the background, 37,7 × 27,5 cm green of the spring leaves.
formal construction that runs through simple forest scene. There is movement down to twenty-five minutes. The Peepul both elements are characteristic of Nordic
the work,” says the artist. The laminat- here, as trunk for trunk the trees send Tree renders us speechless as we stop Expressionist painting. Zweigstudie, um 1860
ed wood is conducive to conveying us wordless signs via the shadows of in the midst of all the hustle and bus- Graphite on paper, 14,5 × 19 cm
dynamism, able to be sawn, layered, their neighbors. tle, market activities, noise, and traffic
sanded. The elongation, inclination, to bear witness to a baffling sacrilege. Christian Friedrich Gille gives us in his
multiplication, and rotation of stacked There are still visitors in the shrine at the sketch a course in both art and nature.
ellipses play variations on an irresistible foot of the sacred peepul tree even as Fascinated by the crooked growth of the
pull that draws the gaze into ever new it is being felled. Why must a Hindu tree, its contorted surfaces and the al-
circumambulations. The layered tempo, shrine be destroyed to make room for ternation between gnarled old wood and
the liquefied wood are dizzying, putting a Hindu pilgrimage festival? In order young shoots, the painter has recorded
our visual habits to the test as we con- to distract from this contradiction, the the details in color with scientific pre-
tinually discern a new head or bust from authorities engaged only men of Muslim cision. Plein air painting was foreign to
every angle. faith as tree-cutters. him. He instead set down on paper his
rendering of the lichen-covered boughMICHAEL GITLIN NIKLAUS HASENBÖHLER EDGAR HONETSCHLÄGER KIM JUNG-MAN TADASHI KAWAMATA WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
(* 1943) (1937–1994) (* 1967) (* 1954) (* 1953) (* 1955)
Improvised Shelter 2, 1987 Autumn Leaf, 1993 Ki, Vienna, 2020 Drawing Shadows (from the series Tree Hut in Madison Square Park, NY, Lekkerbreek, 2013
Wood, 139,5 × 117 × 79 cm Charcoal on Ingres paper, 65 × 50 cm Japanese ink on Washi (Japanese hand- Street of Broken Heart), 2012 2008 Linocut on Universal Technological
made paper), 63 × 93 cm Hanji (Korean traditional paper), Dictionary (or Familiar Explanation
Sculptural concerns l, 1987 The oscillations ripple outward and the black wood frame, 150 × 110 cm It is the most rudimentary of dwellings of the Terms) used in all Arts and
Wood, 56 × 51 × 38 cm lines circle around their model as if Alba, Vienna, 2020 and yet it signals a lawless realm. Cob- Sciences by George Crabb, 1826
poised to take off and transform the Japanese ink on Washi (Japanese hand- Perhaps the tree trunk speaks of affec- bled together from simple boards, the Paper, 170 × 108 cm
At some point, something’s got to give, autumn leaf into something altogether made paper), 63 × 93 cm tion without using words. Doesn’t the hut bespeaks poverty and the will to sur-
right? We know, sense, feel when our new. In autumn especially, growth rebels sight of the slender shadow cast upon it vive but, even more, civil disobedience. “Lekkerbreek,” which means “breaking
own body is out of kilter before we against wilting and withering away. He has been described as a utopian re- presuppose tender attention? A silhou- In Madison Square, where the property easily,” is the vernacular name for a
can put it into words. We perceive and Niklaus Hasenböhler has inflated his alist. But the artist, filmmaker, and envi- ette runs through the body of the tree prices are the highest anywhere in the small tree that grows on sandy ground
control our balance unconsciously in a autumn leaf like a sail that wants to ronmental activist Edgar Honetschläger and cuts it in half below the V-shaped world and the airspace is now also in South Africa. So the title already tells
highly complex, internalized process. But capture one last time everything that has is also a mobilizer. Something needs fork. The line is soft and playful, un- being sold on the stock exchange, the the whole story. Because the constantly
what if we were to observe a perpetual motivated, indeed driven, his art up to to be done, and he is a doer. For his dramatic like a strand of hair that falls tree house defies capitalist profiteering. rewritten, blurred, invented, and fab-
state of falling, sliding, drifting apart? this point. The artist was drastic in his international renaturalization project Go across a face it distracts us for a few Without taking up expensive ground, ricated political reality of that country
Michael Gitlin’s objects unleash stored treatment of the themes he came upon Bugs, Go, land is being acquired collec- moments from the robust growth. We it nests in a habitat usually reserved for remains the challenge and frame of
sensations of weight, volume, and in the social margins, dashing loneli- tively to be barred from human use for feel the urge to reach out and touch birds. Tree Hut is the symbol of an up- reference for William Kentridge’s entire
balance in space. The Israeli-American ness and doubt onto his canvases with the sole purpose of giving insects back the smooth bark, like an arm, a torso, a ward flight and a memorial that is oeuvre, which has grown out of drawing.
artist, who was born in South Africa, expressive vehemence. His drawings their habitat. Giving, not taking, is the leg: a presence more comforting than perhaps also meant to remind us that Ground and figure are related here in
explodes the rules of Minimal Art, frag- only came to public attention late in his order of the day if we are to construc- cunning. Drawing Shadows is part of the the urban park was once a place for such a way that the horizontal lines of
menting the cube into individual parts to career. In retrospect, an “autumn leaf” tively combat the destruction of the envi- photographic series Street of Broken ephemeral games. David is challenging text disrupt the image. Conversely, the
undermine any impression of monumen- seems like a harbinger of his untimely ronment. Honetschlaeger’s ink drawings Heart, which Kim Jung-man published Goliath here. Because no matter how motif—the tree—lambently rebels against
tality. Finally, he hints via the title that death—and like a stark departure from bring to light the endangerment of both as individual prints and in book provisional and model-like this hunter’s a canonized, neatly ordered realm of
sculpture is something that concerns nature studies of earlier nature reserves. How much longer will format. The perforations along the top aerie may look, it leaves a lasting im- knowledge. Fractures are inscribed in
us: “Improvised Shelter” and “Sculptural the trees in the foreground last? Is there edge allude to a before and after, like a pression as a cunning attack on civiliza- the sharp contrast of black and white,
Concerns” are plastic physical evidence a sky without power cables, and where tear-off calendar. Moments follow one tional megalomania. and cracks are everywhere. There can
of the need to acknowledge uncertainty do they all lead anyway? upon the other, sensitive observations be no unified story on a ground that has
in life. made in passing on a solitary walk. been subject to such massive interfer-
ence.PER KIRKEBY JANNIS KOUNELLIS KRIŠTOF KINTERA SOL LEWITT KLAUS LITTMANN DAVID NASH
(1938–2018) (1936–2017) (* 1973) (1928 –2007) (* 1951) (* 1945)
Crystal Tree, 1985 Untitled, 2004 Nervous Trees, 2013 Square #4, 2004 Arena for a Tree, 2021 Crack and Wrap Column, 2010
Oil on canvas, 200 × 150 cm Tree trunks, barbed wire, steel, Electro-mechanical object, fiber glass, Wood, paint 97.2 × 36.8 × 36.8 cm Site specific installation, 8 × 12 m Oak, 197 × 53 × 51 cm
200 × 360 × 45 cm globe, DC motor, electronic control unit,
Gemstones are created in absolute battery It has already been quite some time The layout of the space here harks back Wood is a consuming passion for the
darkness, under enormous pressure. Steel, tree, barbed wire—it doesn’t take since design, handwork, and manufac- to the dawn of occidental culture. At first British artist David Nash. He continually
Luminous and precious, they are re- much to evoke associations of imprison- Humor can provide fertile soil when it ture were disassociated once and for all. a battleground, then a theater, and finally puts its malleability to the test, watch-
trieved from the earth after gradual ment, torture, and extermination. What comes to dealing with tense or hopeless While originality, along with the artist’s an arena has since antiquity offered a es its natural growth, and also lets the
geological processes have lent them a non-place did this fence once screen situations. Krištof Kintera’s Nervous personal handwriting and skill, long setting where everyone has a view of material speak for itself in sculptures
variety of intense hues. Crushed gem- off, what wasteland yawns behind it? Trees seem to have been nourished by gave art its special aura, in the 1960s the events taking place in the center. made for interior spaces. In his Crack
stone is used as a pigment, one of the Jannis Kounellis runs the wire through just such humus. They hold the globe, industrially produced products, including The rows of seats build a horizontally and Wrap Column, the artist has for-
original ingredients in the production of each tree trunk as if through a body. And trembling, in their uprooted clutches. laths, grids, and sheet metal, made their structured shell. Their stacked arrange- mulated both a design principle and its
paints and dyes. This was surely doubly yet these posts still have growth poten- A troupe of electromagnetically motored way into art studios and workshops. ment protects without enclosing and opposite, presenting a concept and its
significant to the geologist and artist tial; their weight could put the wire’s skeletal trees displays to us the fate- Artists became contractors, delegating screens without shutting out the air. In paradoxical counterpart: Fracture and
Per Kirkeby, because the dynamics of tensile strength to the test. Dented ful reversal of the usual conditions: In the actual execution of their work. In the such an arena, the protagonist can find envelopment, a continuous chain and in-
paint layered onto canvas and the layers and bent, it too attests to tremendous the unrestrained exploitation of natu- case of Sol LeWitt, this freed him up to a place for itself in the city. As a growing termittent cracks determine the rhythm
of rock are related. Body-high brush- willpower. Tree trunks, barbed wire, and ral resources, the globe becomes the focus all the more intensely on his own sculpture, a source of shade, or a host in which the individual parts rest atop
strokes—in agate black, amethyst, emer- steel set the pace here, a mute appeal nerve center of a system spiraling out of alphabet of space. Here, cubic spatial for birds and insects, the tree proposes one another. Joining and separating are
ald green—have spent several seasons to flee this fateful situation. control. Can growth also be a bad thing? elements framed by square timbers itself as a one-off event. The arena will the two opposing operations that make
in the studio, storing a previous stage Head over heels, the little trees start to are placed on top of and next to each remain standing on Basel’s Münsterplatz the column grow. In the upward-tapering
in each overpainting. “To paint,” Kirkeby dance—and we may find our laughter other. Their stacking is in the process of until May 24—and then seek new audi- silhouette a tree is still present—and at
once said, “means to surpass intellectual sticking in our throat. growth, pushing up a permeable volume ences in other cities, in each case for a the same time flirts with the simulation
clarity.” To accomplish this, he opens up and building a prototypical framework. different tree. of a tower or skyscraper. The reproduc-
color spaces that are almost physically Square is free of any architectural func- tion of natural growth creates its own
accessible and invites us into the earth’s tion, merely enveloping empty space architecture.
interior. according to the principle of repetition.
The seemingly rigid, modular order hones
our sense of rhythms and proportions,
of planning and ordering, and of the stu-
pendous mobility of shadow and light.LOUISE NEVELSON HANS OP DE BEECK MERET OPPENHEIM GIUSEPPE PENONE MARKUS RAETZ
(1899–1988) (* 1969) (1913 –1985) (* 1947) (1941–2020) / Daniel Spoerri (*1930)
Untitled, 1976–1978 Blossom Tree, 2018 Herbst, 1930 root wood fluff itself up like a bird all by Ripetere il Bosco, Frammento 14, Palette, 1989
Wooden relief, paint, Steel, concrete, polyurethane, exposy Watercolor on paper, itself? There he turns to and fro on the 2007/ 2008 Mixed media, 97 × 96 × 26 cm
213.4 × 87.6 × 12.7 cm resin, coating, plywood, 25 × 31 cm branch like a flag in the wind, a dancer Wood, 261 × 30 × 14 cm
1656 × 1706 × 275 cm with head held proud but a bit unsteady, It is possible to draw using little sticks—
A door can be locked and bolted, but Er sieht sich um, 1971 a piece of plastic for his beak. “He’s Sculpture is what it is, what it is made no one knew that better than Markus
Louise Nevelson’s relief is more than Few building materials are considered Cadavre exquis, wood, metal, bicycle looking around,” is the succinct name of. With no need for a pedestal, the core Raetz. Or one can declare a tabletop to
that. Along its central axis, three open- less natural than gray concrete. And reflector, Oppenheim gave her piece. And we detaches itself from its sheathing. The be a picture and marvel at the way the
ings are suggested, and yet there is no steel or polyurethane can also be cast H: 29 cm suddenly remember what it is to be beam—a building component, ready to remains of a working session or a meal
sign of a handle or knob to open these smoothly in virtually any form. When creative. become part of a floor or roof—seems to look when hung on the wall—in his
supposed hatches. The heads of the melded together, they swallow the am- Waldtempelchen, 1974 reclaim its origins. A beam is a piece of “Tableaux-pièges,” or “snare pictures,”
screws sunk deep into the wood are bient light. These material qualities give Mixed media, wood is a beam is a work of art is a tree. Daniel Spoerri pays homage to the
likewise camouflaged. Black as coal, Op de Beeck’s Blossom Trees a soulless 31.5 × 37.5 × 29.5 cm The levels of meaning flow into each moment. Both artists realized that what
the wood takes on a metallic character. air, making them seem like mere models other, or more precisely: grow into each we see is a matter of perspective. In
Precisely aligned elements evoke a wide that quote and echo a memory of Asian Nothing is impossible and certainly not other. Few artists of his generation have this work, the friends came together
range of images: mischief black as night prints. Rigorously cultivated and tamed, in dreams, which sort things according dealt with trees as long and intimately and each contributed in his own way
or the strict principles of composition; the tree seems to have become here to their own laws. As if in her sleep, as Giuseppe Penone. Trees are for him to a playful moment of illusion. One of
suffocating rejection or a curiosity that is nothing more than an easycare prop. Meret Oppenheim was able to dissolve much more than just a motif or “theme”: them seems to have scribbled on and
ignited especially by a blocked passage. Summer and winter alike, it delights us the boundaries of established object art. Their growth and bracing, their stability then collaged slips of paper and pho
Louise Nevelson, the daughter of Jewish with a touch of pink—delicate like the The artist simply called the beings she and vulnerability, are at the very heart of tographs, while the other froze his studio
immigrants to the USA, worked with spring? Op De Beeck is putting us to the created, often from found items, choses his entire artistic production. table and threaded it in as a tribute to
material that literally lay at her family’s test: How far can he push his artificial (things). Taking a playful delight in his friend and part of his own oeuvre.
feet: Her father owned a sawmill, and naturalness before it fails to seduce us? alienation, she coaxed out the poetry in Immune to any artistic handwriting, the
wood waste and furniture fragments How little does it take for a synthetic inanimate objects. Craft and mystery are wood bows to this appropriation and, as
would become Nevelson’s raw material, blossom to awaken in us the magic and not contradictory, and shells and peb- always, adapts the shade it casts to the
which she invested with the vocabulary fragrance of an entire cherry blossom bles are there to inspire witty flights of given situation.
of modern art. festival? fancy that display to the world charm-
ing new designs for nature: Didn’t theJOHANN MARTIN VON ROHDEN TIM ROLLINS DANIEL ROTH MICHAEL SAILSTORFER
(1778–1868) (1955–2017) and K.O.S. (* 1969) (* 1979)
Baumstudie (Rom), c. 1810 Pinocchio, 1991/ 92 Encounters at a Possible End of the inner spaces, open to projections. Waldputz, 2000 evoked in the work Forst. Here, in a
Oil on primed paper on cardboard, Wood, acrylic, wax, tung oil, Inner Chambers, 2010 The void is embraced, the vague takes C-print, 250 × 480 × 480 cm machine-generated manege, a tree
35.2 × 44.2 cm H: 106 cm, ø 15 cm 2 part-installation, fabric, epoxy resin, on contours; one step beyond all that is unnaturally upended and forced
glue, tree bark, metal, is familiar, the work captures an air Forst, 2010 headlong into the ground, the crown
The tree has been dashed down on The tree trunk was already breathing 220 × 60 × 60 cm and space, offering the mantle of tree bark Steel, electric motor, oak tree, dragging round and round until all
paper rapidly, free from the pressure with life when the woodcarver in the 180 × 50 × 40 cm as a prop for a journey into the interior. dimensions variable sense of life is vanquished.
of creating a successful large compo- children’s story Pinocchio freed the
sition. It simply grows out of a vaguely rogue inside. The name of the legendary Encounters at a Possible End of the Whether wooded or arable land, recre
implied rootless trunk into the sky, as a wooden marionette is a neologism made Inner Chambers, 2010 ational area, fallow land or building site:
form of possibility and a set piece for up of pino for pine, pinco for fool, and C-print, 35 × 5 cm Hardly any terrain in our latitudes is left
a landscape in the making. The focus occhio for eye. But who is it exactly that entirely untouched, and the parcelling
on precisely rendered painterly details is peering out at us here so defiantly, Daniel Roth has been called an “asso- of land into usable plots has long since
alongside diffusely fraying areas offers fully veiled by the bark? Should we take ciative cartographer.” He tells stories reached the forest as well. But what
the eye disparate depths of field; as if tools in hand and free this imprisoned without words, using materials instead purpose does this square serve that
the painter was anticipating photogra- being? For Tim Rollins, that would prob- to reconstruct, as it were, the gaps in Michael Sailstorfer uncovered not far
phy, we experience in his study an expo- ably not be taboo. The art teacher set our memories. Extremely selective in his from his father’s farm in Lower Bavaria?
sure time that reveals branches swaying out decades ago to use artistic methods choice of media, he reinvents cultural The word ‘Waldputz’ means primarily
in the wind. Due to his obsession with to help fight poverty, drugs, AIDS, and history in precisely dosed arrange- clearing the ground of all vegetation.
detail, Johann Martin von Rohden left gang warfare in the South Bronx. His ments, assigning us a place in the Tree trunks assume the role of building
behind a comparatively small oeuvre, amalgam of hands-on assistance and events beyond any concrete indications outlines here, demarcating this unusual
making every meticulous production explanation, Arte Povera, performances, of place or time. His picture here turns stage. Is the dark coloring the result
from his workshop all the more valuable. and gallery visits is a decided departure us into explorers on an expedition into of a pesticide, or does it anticipate
The illusion and reproduction of expe- from traditional academic art education. the earth’s interior and accomplices in the height of a planned construction
rienced reality emerges bit by bit here Perhaps Pinocchio is meant to be the the search for the unknown. But isn’t volume? Nothing is clear here—and
from layered dabs of paint that gradually godfather for self-empowerment? The everything we see in fact verifiable thus the image summons the idea of
condense into an image. possibilities offered by the tree trunk as and concretely formed? Two characters a forest replete with thousands of
relatable model and initiation into artistic made of felt and wood face each other unpredictable unknowns. A painful
practice have not yet been exhausted. in the White Cube, silent witnesses to caesura in natural cycles is likewiseHERMANN SCHERER ROMAN SIGNER KLAUS STAECK NIKLAUS STOECKLIN SU-MEI TSE
(1893–1927) (* 1938) (* 1938) (1896 –1982) (* 1973)
Striding Child with Two Women, 1925 In the Styrian Forest, 2002 Deutscher Mischwald (regenfest), started going organic and individual Kapelle mit Erhängtem, 1929 (in collaboration with Jean-Lou Majerus)
Fir wood, 146 × 54 × 52 cm Video transferred to DVD, color, sound, 1984 responsibility advanced to the status of Oil on wood, 54 × 61 cm
9 min 8 sec Poster, offset print, 84 × 59 cm a moral imperative. Nearly forty years Trees & Roots #2, #3, #4, 2011
Looking back today, it is hard to under- after they were made, Klaus Staeck’s The stumps of trees stand in isolation Bronze, 350 × 200 × 200 cm
stand why Hermann Scherer’s figures If a new forest is to grow, something Lasst uns nicht im Regen stehen, posters still strike a chord today. If the around a pink chapel in a grotesquely
caused such a sensation in their day. must make way for it. Acts of liberation 1983 detoxification will succeed and we can forlorn landscape. The world has been Trees & Roots II, 2010
They were deemed morally offensive are radical and follow a precise plan. Poster, offset print, 84 × 59 cm once again offer the forest healthy soil smothered under sand. The painter C-Print, 100 × 150 cm
and even banned from an exhibition at A double spiral of boreholes testifies is an open question. applies the brush like a fine scalpel to
the Kunsthalle Basel in 1925. We feel to the subtle humor with which Roman The message could not be any clearer: make the bough bend under the weight The little trees and bushes look highly
that we recognize in the minimal differ- Signer deals with explosives. Although Profit destroys habitats. Graphically, the of the hanged man. A human life is artificial and yet obstinately original. Cul-
ences of posture and facial expression the detonations bring to mind a mil superimposition of a dead forest and a extinguished with ruthless subtlety. The tivated in small planters, they have long
here “three ages of man.” And yet the itary operation on enemy soil, leaving bar code, the symbol for internationally black interior of the house of worship been part of the inventory of sophisti-
boy is striding forth like a little man. If thick clouds of smoke wafting over the identifiable commercial articles, breaks provides no consolation. New Objectivity cated interiors. In Su-Mei Tse’s work,
we are tempted to identify the sculp- lumberyard, in the long run, each bang down to a fatal common denominator. was the name of the 1925 exhibition in the dwarf plants manifest a special
ture as a nuclear family from the back, made room for a young beech. There The “German mixed forest,” shooting up Mannheim, Germany, in which Niklaus relationship between roots and crown.
the two female bodies we discern from they grow in synchrony, looking almost straight as an arrow above barren moor- Stoecklin exhibited this work, the only Arranged eqidistant from one another
the front then subvert the expectation tame in their carefully planned rows. land, acts as a border fence cutting off Swiss artist represented. The title said on raked sand, they are merely set in
of this social norm. Scherer’s sculpture And with them there quietly germinates our view of any far horizon. “Acid rain” it all: Those who had witnessed war place. The white of the terrain, broken
has assimilated the archaic calm, even the hope that new life can take root in was a pressing issue on everyone’s lips were seeking relentless objectivity—a only by ten-der grass, appears even
tenderness of medieval depictions of the soil that has been blasted apart. in the 1980s, not least in West Germany. hyper-clarity suppressing the expres- more synthetic under the dark root balls.
Virgin Mary and at the same time points More than just alluding to the threat of sionistic exuberance of painterly gesture Cultural refinement and natural erosion
a hundred years beyond itself. What forest die-back, the term became syn- and allowing for not even a quantum are indistinguishable here, and the tree
image could today more compellingly onymous with widespread man-made of charm. Nothing overlaps or merges becomes a transport commodity be-
express our human affiliation than this environmental pollution. Demands were here. As if in glaring neon light, the tween climates and mentalities. Growing
small group hewn from a single fir tree? made for an about-face in environmen- wasteland and the bitter truth slap us in up in Luxembourg as the daughter of a
tal policy, including the shutdown of the face. The world we once knew has Chinese-British couple, Su-Mei Tse
lignite-fired power plants, while farms slipped through our fingers. found her way to an art that intertwinesJEAN TINGUELY MARK TOBEY SHIGEO TOYA GÜNTHER UECKER
(1925 –1991) (1890–1976) (* 1947) (* 1930)
Western lore and aspects of Asian phi- L’Ours de Bursinel, 1990 strength, is being attacked from all sides Forest Cathedral, 1955 Untitled, 1989 Baumskulptur, 2001
losophy. Mobility is secondary here: Cast Tree stump, iron, concrete, by industrially manufactured set pieces. Tempera on paper on cardboard, Fire treated wood, Mixed media, 120 × Ø 70 cm
in bronze and with packed roots, the electric motor, The battle here seems futile, and the 53 × 39 cm L: 40 × 48 × 0 cm, R: 30 × 40 × 35 cm
tree gives us all the time in the world for 220 × 230 × 230 cm “explosiveness” that Tinguely incorpo- A tremor ran through the new gener-
contemplation. rated as a formal quality into his figures Oil paintings, glazes, stucco façades, Most of the time, we understand “natu- ation of artists. In its “zero hour,” the
Eléonore, 1990 also quite painful. even rock: The finest cracks may appear ral” as being diametrically opposed to young Federal Republic of Germany
Floor sculpture, iron, stump, in their surfaces. Temperature, humidity, “artificial.” We recognize either some- wanted to, indeed had to, reinvent itself.
raising car tyre, animal sculls with and the ravages of time inscribe dynam- thing grown or made. This habit of There were plenty of sparks to light
antlers, electric motor, ic structures into their intact skin. Other sorting is being scientifically questioned the flame. Art vehemently screamed
250 × 400 × 360 cm things are doomed to breakdown from today, but it has already been faltering and lashed out at everything that was
the outset: The growth of tree bark or for decades for Shigeo Toya. The Japa- considered to be established and all
Junkyards were his studios and the of crystals is accompanied by edges nese sculptor saws his pieces of wood, that had allowed the horror of history to
source of the raw material for his art. and fractures, the whole resembling its burns and scrapes their surfaces, in the take place. Some artists joined forces,
Jean Tinguely welded together iron and components. Mark Tobey often bases process knocking holes in our supposed among them Günther Uecker, a found-
sheet metal parts, rubber belts, bones his pictorial abstractions on microscopic knowledge of growth, stability, and de- ing member of the “Zero” group. They
and bolts, coils and wheels, eyelets views of natural phenomena, details cay. His sculptures have the appearance tried out new things, staked their claims,
and hooks to create expansive sculp- of the finest close-ups. Was Forest of never-before-seen oversized fruits provoked, destroyed. Uecker began to
tures. Machines are extensions of, and Cathedral inspired by weathered bark, or seeds. Ruffled and notched, they lie hammer nails into volumes and sur-
replacements for, human physical or are we looking at a mineral structure there on the ground—evidence of harsh faces. The nails spread out in billows
labor, skeletons of pure efficiency. or perhaps eroded soil? The “Informel” weather, a volcanic eruption, a relent- across furniture, boards, and walls,
“The passion, tenderness, and drive he qualities of this painting call to mind lessly harsh existence. The craftsman’s forming swarms of shadows and unruly
invested in his best works seem to elicit myriad associations. The cathedral in treatment of the material becomes in patterns, scraping open surfaces and
in viewers their own associations with the title evokes a place of inwardness, a Toya’s work an elemental force that gifts enlarging volumes with their spiky fur.
life.” (A. Monteil, 2005). In the colossal space permeated by light: Here we feel us with new totems in the form of swirls, The canvas was transformed into ban
tree trunk from Bursinel in the canton of a resonance, painting as silence and folds, and notches. daging material. Here, the trunk wears
Vaud, the artist saw the torso of a sitting as an echo of the cracked webs of our its wounding crown of thorns with pride.
bear. This trunk, a vestige of animal selves.CHRISTIAN VOGT Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger | KBH.G (* 1946) Spitalstrasse 18, 4056 Basel, Switzerland Skulptur Alfonso Hüppi, 2000 +41 61 262 01 66, kbhg.ch Carbon print on hand-made paper, 150 ×111 cm It’s all there, exuding a sober presence. Under homogeneously over-cast skies, Basel’s Barfüsserplatz, otherwise busy day and night, is deserted here. How small the phone booths were back then, next to the tall tree. The tram stop and a row of houses appear to crouch under the trunk, which is tectonically encased in brick. Here a bench, there a bicycle, no trace of bustling activity across the urban square. Christian Vogt has docu mented here a sculpture by Alfonso Hüppi that was temporarily set up on the square for the cultural project Skultur in 2000. But the artist foregoes any situa- tional punchline. The sculptural protag onist is shot with a wide-angle lens, adding even more distance to the image. An eerie silence pervades the scene— only along the edge of the large print does the second, momentary authorship of the photograph make itself known.
You can also read
