after nature. Strategies of nature in contemporary sculpture

Bettina Berg, Yvette Deseyve & Veronica Wiegartz (eds.). nach der natur. Strategien der Natur in der zeitgenössischen Bildhauerei/after nature. Strategies of nature in contemporary sculpture. Bremen: Gerhard-Marcks-Stiftung. 2014.

Preface

In his ‘What Does a Virus Look Like?’ the biologist Stephen Harrison described how microscopic entities do not look anything like we imagine. Outside the field of biology, the main discussion of the problem addressed by Harrison takes place in the discipline of visual studies. What becomes apparent is a simple logic: the more we know about bacteria, viruses or the genetic information in ribonucleic acid, the less likely we are to find images for them. Images serve the imagination, and at some time or another the imagination is outweighed by knowledge. Art historians are not unfamiliar with this insight. During the Enlightenment when criticism and knowledge outweighed imagination, images lost their mythic quality. Images celebrating the Christian Mystery turned into historically correct representations of rural life in Bethlehem around the year 4 BC. Consequently art shifted its interest to other mysteries, and the religious wonderment related to pictures moved out of the churches into the temples of art.

The fact that art possesses a mythic potential beyond religious imagery was the great insight of Romanticism, following on from the Enlightenment. In her essay on After Nature the curator Yvette Deseyve points out that today’s interest in transitions between art and nature contains mythic elements which are deeply rooted in history. It is probably no exaggeration to claim that, in this regard, art concretises vague fears and dreams which still (as yet) outweigh knowledge. Now this does not necessarily mean that at some point reality will catch up with art. What needs to be understood, rather, is that art equips people for what might await them on the horizon. Not because the world is changing in a particular direction, but because people can then understand the unfamiliar. It is not solely about the horizon, though, but about helping society to retain its sensorium for mystery and reflection. This calls for wonderment, and places which make that possible.

The curator of this exhibition attempts to strike a difficult balance. On the one hand, in Anne Koskinen, Reiner Maria Matysik, Thomas & Renée Rapedius and Martin Schwenk she has invited artists whose works provoke wonderment and make viewers think about art and nature. On the other hand, she also positions their works spatially in relationships and traditions, thereby placing wonderment on solid ground. For museums as we understand them are no mere temples of art, but places which oscillate between Enlightenment and Romanticism and allow their visitors the same freedom. The exhibition shows methods and patterns without wanting to constrain the individual sculptural language of the artists. Such a collective balancing act takes courage and self-belief, and the participating artists are warmly thanked for having taken the risks associated with this kind of concept with enormous commitment.

While contemporary art generally preserves the myth of ‘creatio ex nihilo, part of the self-concept of the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus is to mention traditions by name in a relaxed and unpompous way. Our underlying conviction is that a renewal of art without tradition is just as unthinkable as tradition without renewal. The lively diversity of the present day is in correspondence with a whole bouquet of traditions. There is probably no medium that has changed as much in the last 50 years as sculpture, and yet – as this exhibition also makes evident – the methods are not plucked from nowhere. In the wake of all the many metamorphoses, today the medium of sculpture should probably be defined as something that, first and foremost, is a comprehensible and coherent arrangement of volumes in space. Nevertheless, the Greeks had that, too.

This exhibition was made possible by a donation from Bremer Landesbank and by the support of the museum’s friends association, the Freundeskreis des Gerhard-Marcks-Hauses e. V. Both are dependable partners even in difficult times, for which we cannot thank them enough. Thanks are also expressed to Galerie Anhava, which took charge of transporting the works from Finland. For while ideas are born in museums, somehow they also have to be realised. What this also requires is a team that can react professionally and flexibly to challenges and, at the same time, work under time pressure alongside realising the exhibition to produce this book as well. The book documents the exhibition at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus and, more broadly, aims to inspire readers to think of sculpture and nature as belonging together in the present day. If it could also provoke wonderment and achieve a modicum of Enlightenment, the project would be a perfect success.

Arie Hartog

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen
21 september 2014 to 4 january 2015
Gerhard-Marcks-Haus
Am Wall 208, D-28195 Bremen
www.marcks.de
Distribution outside of german-speaking countries by
John Rule Sales & Marketing, London
www.johnrule.co.uk

ISBN 978-3-924412-81-4

Image: Anne Koskinen, DEUS PROTECTOR NOSTER, 16.04.2002, bronze, 31x13x5,5cm, Helsinki Art Museum, photo Maija Toivanen