István Erőss
Nature Art
Table of Contents
Preface Nature Art – Essaying a Definition
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURE ART IN WESTERN ART Representation of Nature in Western Art – A Brief Historical Approach Factors of the Emergence of Nature Art
AMERICA The Beginnings. Land Art Differences of Attitude in the Beginning The “Machos” The Middle-on-the-Roaders The Eco-Labourers Ecovention
EUROPE Western Europe Joseph Beuys Eastern Europe AnnArt Hungary Pécs Workshop Fáskör (Wooden Circle) Organic Architect Groups The MAMŰ Association
NATURE ART IN EASTERN CULTURE – AN INTRODUCTION
INDIA The Perception of Nature in Hinduism The Afterlife of the Gandhian Idea: Craftsmanship versus Mass Production Sandarbh Artists Workshop
TAIWAN A Symbiosis with Nature – Chinese Universalism Feng-shui Chinese Garden Chinese Wash-Drawing and Calligraphy Nature Art Events on the Chinese-Speaking Territory Juming International Art Camp Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival
JAPAN The Buddhist Philosophy of Nature Shinto The Japanese Aesthetic: Wabi-sabi Japanese Garden Nature Art in Japan. Institutions, Events Abiko Open Air Exhibition
SOUTH KOREA Contemporary Art Scene – A Deliberate Catching Up Geumgang Nature Art Biennale Antecedents Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2006 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2008
SUMMARY
Preface
During the South Slavic Wars in 1993 I was invited to an international symposium called “Labin Art Express” held in the Croatian city of Labin; there, at the scene, I had to create a place-specific work at the would-be-liquidated mine Lamparna. As a graphic it meant a difficult task for me to react to the challenges of three-dimensional space; and only after a week‟s gripe did I manage to create the work which not only satisfied the organisers, but evoked the depressive atmosphere of the mine and of the outer war milieu, and reflected the desperate political situation and the absurdity of the concluding war, too. First during my work as an artist the atmosphere and material caught on spot were much more emphatically present in the creation of the installation than experience brought from home. After the solvent-filled air of routine studio work for the first time had I the chance to feel the method of creating site-specific works and let the spirit of the place and the materials found on spot to fertilise the original creative intention. In these times I was mainly interested in the possibilities of three dimensions: in making physical space function as virtual by the means of fine art. Later I created more and more frequently site-specific works, and after a while I deliberately looked for possibilities to make such works.
1. István Erőss: After Crying, installation, Labin, Croatia, 1993
2. István Erőss: Wailing Wall (Siratófal), installation, 10 m x 2,50 m, Gallery Vigadó, Budapest, Hungary, 1994
During this period those theoretical writings which, after the appearance of colour copiers and printers at the beginning of the ‟90s, shed new light on the problem of reproducibility, began to be published in Hungarian. A 1991 interview by Flusser provided for me the basic question: „Automatism wonders me in a way that I realise that all that could be mechanised functions better with machines than with human beings. It is even humiliating to do such things that can be done by machines”1. The problem raised by Flusser was a basic contribution to my work; and I started to create ephemeral, site-specific, unrepeatable works along with the reproducible graphics. There was another important factor that influenced my range of interest, and it was a lonesome African journey. For five weeks in 1994 as a backpacker I travelled to and fro in Tanzania, get a sight into the everyday natural life of different tribes, and saw wonders of nature such as Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti National Park, crater Ngorongoro, Lake Victoria, or Lake Tanganyika and its surroundings. The African trip basically changed my thought, reframed my relation to other cultures, and generated further travels. During my 1997 trip I travelled through several African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), and this time I was more skilful to study and compare the habits of different tribes of creating pictures and
1 “The hegemony of technical pictures”. An interview with Vilém Flusser by Thomas Miessgang. Hungarian translation: http://www.artpool.hu/Flusser/interju.html (06.03.2008.) objects. These experiences helped a lot later to reinterpret the function of the work of art, and greatly contributed to change my relation towards nature. Following the Croatian invitation I received another one to Graz in 1995 to prepare a site-specific work: this time the setting was a five hundred year old mill. It took me a whole week again to invent the idea, and, just like at the Labin project, I used primarily local materials (grain, linen, water, glue). Thanks to the Graz connection I was invited to Taiwan in 1997 where I had to face a new challenge. Creation happened in open air, in nature; so this time the task was not to “furnish” the closed space of a building, but rather to set the completed work into context, to harmonise it into an existing, given natural environment resistant to influence. Despite the fact that only several minor works had been done on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, the time of experimentation became definitive for my later work. In retrospect these works made of driftwood were my first attempts at doing nature art. The first intentional nature art event to which I was invited was in Japan, in 2002. It was the fifth time that the “Abiko Open Air Exhibition” was held, so looking through the works created in former years I found out the specificity of the event, and realised what kind of work the organisers expect. At this time I consciously let myself be influenced by the locally found natural materials, and consciously integrated the natural environment into the work of art. In the following years I participated in one, two or (in 2008) three events yearly, primarily on the Asian continent, in Taiwan, South Korea, Mongolia and India. I slowly began to become curious what is the origin of this high degree of love towards nature on this part of the world. But I still worked intuitively and the history, the cultural and religious background of this specifically Asian artistic expression was not completely clear for me. During the Gongju Biennale in 2006, while I spent my time with artists from all around the world, it came to my mind to examine Asian nature art events and compare them to similar events held in the West. The result of the following research was my DLA thesis which I worked into a book. The latter is in Your hands right now. In my thesis I tried to survey the methods to represent nature during important periods of art history; to point out the catalysing role of land art in the ‟60s in the setting out of this movement; finally, to describe the different orientations that were already discernable. Further on, I made an attempt to define what nature art is and to describe those traits that makes its American, European, Eastern European and Far Eastern varieties different. I explained several Asian nature art events in more detail, emphasising their cultural background, organisational methods, and apart from my own works I introduced some creators that I considered to be prominent in this field. While writing my thesis I produced a number of nature art works and participated on a few presentations, conferences in the field; so I could have reported on how the received knowledge affected the creation of works. And, vice versa, how the personal experience I gained during the preparing of the works helped me to study the related literature which is not too massive yet. Following the completion of the thesis a lot of things happened. I took part in a number of home or foreign nature art events as an organiser or as an invited artist; I made another trip to Africa, now as a lecturer, but what is perhaps most important of all: I initiated a new nature art specialisation most probably setting out in this September on the Visual Arts Department at the College Károly Esterházy, Eger. I hope this writing will be fascinating not only for future nature artists but for all who is engaged with both nature and art.
April, 2010, Budapest
István Erőss
NATURE ART – ESSAYING A DEFINITION
The term ‟nature art‟ is not generally accepted yet, its meaning is variable, and its use in the related literature is not unequivocal. The shaping, developing range of the concept is tangible though along the titles of books published since the ‟60s: Land Art – ‟60s; Art in the Land (Alan Sonfist) – ‟70s; Art and Nature (John K. Grande) – ‟80s; Art in Nature (Vittorio Fagone) – ‟90s; Nature Art (Group Yatoo) – from the ‟90s to now on.
In the US the term ‟nature art‟ is not in use; perhaps because in the native land of land art the former seems too general, and they stick to exact naming of the several different trends stemming from land art, such as eco-art, environmental art, earth art, resource art, primitivist art etc. On the North American continent eco-art became to be the most prominent branch, overpowering, and to some degree integrating other, previously significant trends like land art, primitivist art or resource art. In Europe the term nature art (Natur Kunst) is in use as a collective term in the recent ten or fifteen years; though the expression dates back to the end of the ‟60s when it was used almost exclusively by European artists and critics. It functioned then though only as a working title of an exhibition or an artwork, and not in its collective way like today. For instance, in 1969 Timm Ulrich filled an art gallery with recently cut pine logs and called the work itself nature art. Or, also in 1969, Klaus Hoffmann, in his essay about the expansion of art, discussing the polarisation of art and nature uses the expression nature art to cover the aesthetical potential hidden in nature that deserves to be elevated into art. Yet Heinz Thiel in his article in Kunstforum analyses what the concept Natur Kunst may refer to: „Art for and with nature, the site in which this is developed (the context) and the natural material.”2 (Thiel, 1982) Thiel‟s formulation is an important moment because the terminology here began to differ from that of land art. Another German critic Sibylle Berger later employs the expression Natur Kunst as a collective term, including arte povera and animal art in its range of meaning, too.
It would require further study to determine whether there is any slight difference of meaning between the English and the German expression.
In Asia the term nature art is used with great confidence so much that for instance in South Korea it became an everyday notion. In this process the activity of the Group Yatoo
2 Thanks to Anke Mellin for this information. played a major role: the mass of volumes they published and the intensity of media-presence they generated greatly contributed to this popularity. The expression ‟nature art‟ was first used by one of the leaders of the group, Ko Sheng Yung who used it since 1983. In May 1988 their exhibition in Dong-A Gallery, Daejon bore the name ‟Nature Art Indoor‟.
The Hungarian equivalent of nature art („természetművészet”) first appears in the preface written by Katalin Keserű in the catalogue of an exhibition titled „Természetesen” (i.e. „Naturally”) held in Museum Ernst, Budapest (p. 20, 1994). In the same catalogue János Sturcz writes about the basic concept of the exhibition:
„In our collection we concentrated on those works that 1. strive to recreate the harmony with nature; 2. use natural materials, objects, energies, sites directly in creation, that is, their fundament is the direct physical contact with nature. It means that nature is basically not the object of representation, rather the indicator of an attitude which cannot be exclusively bound to one of the trends (e.g. resource, ecological, green, primitivist, ritual, earth, land etc. art), instead it comes to life in the intersection and the co-influence of all these views...” (p. 9., 1994.)
The English definition of nature art: „art for and with nature” in my view too reductive and simplifying, so I set out to define the term (maybe somewhat arbitrarily) from the above cited conception of János Sturcz. Nevertheless, I would like to complete the list of trends he enumerated by the concepts of environmental and body art and land action, and I would quote some further attributes characteristic of works within the field of the nature art.
These works are set up far away from urban areas: usually in natural or rural environment. The created „sign” emphasises the specificity, the individualistic character of the given place; their interwoven existence is unchangeable; the work cannot exist outside the definitive environmental context.
During the process of creation the artist use natural materials that can be found in the given environment which are fleeting, dissolving, so the work itself is ephemeral. Time concretise itself in the artwork because even at the moment of creation its duration of life is encoded in it. In this case the conventional myth of the work of art intended for eternity does not succeed – the creation exists in the cyclically changing time of nature. While working on the material the creator is mainly restricted to techniques of craftsmanship (drawing off, spinning, jointing, fastening etc.) and avoids mechanical work. The nature artist respects folk art, respects art outside of the Western culture and s/he would not pick out their elements from their own contexts.
It is important to note that works of nature art are somewhat against mainstream because usually they cannot be transported and thus they can be very hardly integrated to the institutional system of art galleries and museums, furthermore, due to their immobility they fall out of the interest of collectors.
When we observe the creative attitude of the nature artist we should concentrate on his ability to leave harmonic and symbolic signs in nature. The term ‟nature artist‟ circumscribes a behaviour that is currently in the process of becoming, that had not crystallised into a perfect concept yet, but for some became a way of approaching, a way of acting. In this respect it is enough to think of the participants of the numerous Korean nature art events.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURE ART IN WESTERN ART
Representation of Nature in Western Art – a Brief Historical Approach
In Western culture the development of the visual representation of the land is in relation with the gradual isolation of the space of human life and nature. Though cave drawings prove the interwoven relation of natural forces and human existence, the history of mankind brought with itself the development of built up territories and along with it the shaping of the land to the greater loss of natural environment. Natural environment have always been a part of artistic representation, but with the gradual distantiation of man from nature the representation of nature received more and more emphasis, and finally it has been canonised as a distinct genre. This is what we call landscape painting.
In fact, landscape painting mirrored the changes of the human mind. In his still valid study analysing landscape painting Kenneth Clark (Clark, 1949) claims that looking through the whole of art history the short life of landscape painting signifies correctly the changes and different stations of man‟s concept of nature. In opposition to the East, complex representations of nature did not exist even in the most prominent periods of Western art. From an iconographic point of view, neither in Greece, nor in the period of the cathedrals, nor in the era of Giotto and the renaissance did landscape painting receive its deserved place. Though one can find representations of land on the walls of Roman villas from the second century BC., the crucial distantiation from nature happens during the renaissance when following the rules of renaissance perspective the artist/creator positions himself (and in this way the viewer too) outside the picture constructed by him. „(...) each object is painted from an idealised viewpoint levitating statically before the picture, but this viewpoint in fact could never be inherited by the corporeal reality of the viewer” (Perneczky, 1995).
Landscape receives its final definition in Western art only in the 17th century. The conventional definition sounds like this: „a piece of land that can be captured by a glance” (Fowkes and Fowkes, 2005). Thus it is a frame that can be conceived by man from the whole. As a term „landscape‟ was introduced in the English language around 1600 with the mediation of Dutch masters of landscape painting. The expression landscape referred to the painted picture and its meaning expanded only later on the depicted land itself. English artist and critic Suzi Gablik emphasises how the distantiation from nature and the framed perception influenced each other: „...... ” (Fowkes and Fowkes, 2005). During the industrial revolution the distance became even greater, until the renaissance perspective which, according to Miklós Peternák, „metaphorically speaking symbolised the world order, the functioning of God concentrated in one point” (Szűcs, 1999) have collapsed.
It is known that Romanticism is the period when the claim to replace man in a wider natural environment became fundamental in several respects. For the Romantic view characteristic of literature and art the nature represented through landscape is simultaneously a visual representation and the projection of the artist‟s emotions. Another significant influence on the development of the meaning of nature was scientific Romanticism which created the system of natural sciences built on the consistent methodology of observation and analysis.
Landscape painting became the dominant way of artistic expression in the 19th century when the morphological sciences studying physical reality began to develop, when the scientific „credo” of enlightened philosophers became more and more popular, and when artistic pleasure became available for the masses. During the middle of the century natural horizon coincided with the horizon perceivable by man – it can be regarded as anthropocentric. The scientific development of the second half of the century, the new pictures provided by the microscope and physics expanded the perception of the world.
At the end of the century the genius of Cézanne anticipated that the following century would be characterised by the development and the unbreakable expansion of technology, and that this process would ultimately influence the evolution of artistic language which would again increase the distance between man and natural environment. The cubist view of the collapsing and flattening form, the futurist celebration of mechanisation and energy, and the primary formalism of neoplasticism are the first and explicit proofs of the vision outlined by Cézanne.
In the 20th century scientific development was the primary factor in the formation of art and within it the conception of nature. The scientific development of the era, and most prominently the groundbreaking work of Einstein had their equivalents in the arts. The formal language plastically representing visual reality has been changed. Time, seen more and more as a component of space, as the fourth dimension, was integrated into the artwork by the means of dynamics. In this period the conception of nature has been changed once and for all. Formerly nature was seen as a varied and changing phenomenon, as a direct evidence that is the synonym of the complex reality of the world. From now on nature was rather grabbed as a stream of energy where the surface indicates only the temporal changing of the phenomena rooted in the deep. According to Vittorio Fagone the fact that the notion of „nature as energy” has replaced the notion of „nature as evidence” in the sciences unequivocally corresponds to the phenomenon of the growing importance of expression and signs in modern arts (Fagone, 1996, p. 15.).
The appearance of reproducibility (photography, film) again encouraged art to break the bonds of iconographic and mimetic expression and to turn to expressive representation and signs instead. The reasons for the decadence of landscape painting can be found in the widening techniques of reproducibility, too, and in the collapse of the dimension of the „natural” which was caused by the further development of sciences. While cubists were unsatisfied merely of the perspective-bound representation of the observed object, Mondrian‟s art was a rethinking of the dimension of nature in all of its aspects. He claimed that relations can be represented much more alive when they are not covered by naturalism; in this way a much more intensive effect may be achieved than with forms and colours imitating nature. „Our inner self, our subjective vision does not harmonise with the objective presence of nature” – he remarked. (Fagone, 1996, p. 16-17.)
However, artists of abstract expressionism and informel after the II World War denied the representation of nature and concentrated instead on the projection of emotions. It was felt more and more that though natural world is at a loss we nevertheless would never be able to renounce it. This feeling was definitive for the evolution of a new artistic canon stemming out from flux through arte povera and land art until today‟s movement of nature art.
By the end of the ‟60s, near the beginning of the ‟70s the appearance of land art brought with itself not only a closer approach to nature but the breaking with the rule of „framing”, too. Besides emphasising duration and processing time, a main feature of land art was that the artwork could not be caught by a frame or a glance further. That means that the artwork has become an experience that would not indicate in itself the solely right perspective or focal point. The artistic act realised itself in what was previously a framed object of a picture: in the land, in nature. From the perspective of nature art it must be regarded as a highly important moment.
Factors of the emergence of nature art
When we speak about the early stage of land art we would like to cover all “in situ”, outside studio artists with that category. However, the different stemming points reflect different views; hopefully this claim will be clear from what follows. Some branches have fulfilled themselves and flourish today. Such is the politically engaged and scientifically based eco-art. Others have vanished or have been domesticated like “earth-movers”, whose autotelic interventions have become landscape surgical acts.
For „post studio” (Carl André) artists of the ‟80s Europe the greatest influence were the works of, as I would put it, middle-of-the-roader trend which testified an “alliance with nature”. Those nature art events that I would like to investigate in this paper were results of connections made in the ‟90s between European, Asian, and later American artists and organisers.
Near the end of the ‟60s and the beginning of the ‟70s when emblematic works of land art have been born the endeavour still manifested itself, following the classical avantgarde predecessors, that art and everyday life should infiltrate each other. The remark made by Werner Hofmann about classical avantgarde still held valid about the „expansionist-activist” period of the ‟70s: „...... Hofmann 1974”. This „expansionist-activist” attitude, being in accord with the rebellious behaviour of the beat generation, thrived for the elimination of fetishised, commercialised cult of the artwork, for the annihilation of itself as art and try to create itself as a new, total reality. Though this endeavour intents to destroy conventional limitations of art, it still preserves its aesthetic character. We might say that though its „aim was to create the total reality, its result was a new art nevertheless” (Hegyi, 1983). In sum, the ‟10s and ‟20s avantgarde movements and the expansionist trends starting from the middle of the ‟50s until the middle of the ‟70s have created new artistic formations and a new conception of art. They „conquered fields for artistic creativity that had fallen out from the sphere of the ‟artistic‟ before” (Hegyi, 1983).
The beginning of the ‟70s is the opening period of postmodernism, but optimism inherited from the avantgarde still holds on. Furthermore, as Géza Perneczky points out, the utopistic view of science and technology survives through the decades of postmodernism. Especially on those fields where a genre or a technical branch begins to develop rapidly so its impulse in itself is enough to „at least temporarily regenerate beliefs in a »better future« or in a »more perfect solution«” (1995).
I would choose merely two of the scientific and technological examples listed by Perneczky: the first is computer technology whose stunning expansion, enriching art and later creating media art, was already visible then. Such famous aesthetes and art writers helped this artistic branch which at the beginning had but „very tiny aesthetic reflexions” as Peter Weibel, Hannes Böhringer, Jean Baudrillard. Their writings gave density to the more and more viable events (‟Ars electronica‟, ‟Mediale‟ etc.).
The other dynamically developing scientific thesis producing high results was chaos theory. Its practical use in the natural sciences left its trace in the thought of artists sensitive to ecology, and it manifests itself in their hands offered to natural sciences, their ready-to- cooperate attitude towards biologists, ecologists, land architects. Finding each other must have been difficult, and it was realised rather slowly owing to the long-surviving doubts of scientists. It was hard for them to beleive that the exalted, bohemian artists are capable of „serious” co-operation. „...in the eye of the scientists this joining of forces seemed as if the emptying modernism would hurry to catch some morsels falling off from the table of great discoveries in order to build up some late utopias from what it managed to understand more or less” – wrote Perneczky (1995).
From these „joint forces” came alive the hardliner American representatives of eco-art who created their own institutional background (greenmuseum.com, Woman Environmental Artists, International Center For Environmental Art etc.), thus operating a well-functioning network they demonstrate the revaluing social role of the artist, and their more and more political voice sounds stronger and stronger. Conscious of their prominent role they do not partake on „simple” art events such as biennales, the Documenta, the exhibitions of commercial galleries. Their activities are „in situ”. This concept has been developed further by American eco-artist (and curator and theoretician as well) Aviva Rahmani when for instance he got his work made without personal contribution, by orders given via internet on the German programme Naturkunst-Licherode to spare the environmental pollution which would have been done by transportation.3
Thanks to the widening range of electronic media by the end of the ‟60s humanity received more and more collective experiences: the radio played and the people hummed the same beat song on all continents; landing on the moon was broadcasted in the East as well as in the West independently of political-ideological beliefs. At first globalisation seemed to be a warm uniting force, but soon the first oil crisis warned us that the reserves of the planet are finite. The more and more frequent nuclear explosions and environmental pollutions modelled the vulnerability of the Earth, and the desired solution of the more and more worrisome problems of climate, environmental pollution, overpopulation and globalisation made scientists, artists, self-conscious laymen and sometimes even politicians to join forces and act together. To help solving these global problems in 1968 the Roman Club was founded with the aim to „help decision-makers and the public understand the general troubles which they called »world problematics«. They give commissions for studies, organise meetings, hold conferences, and through its members‟ personal initiatives do unofficial activities.” (László, 1985.)
From our perspective Budapest Klub may be even more interesting which is the unofficial association of noted thinkers of different (artistic, literary, intellectual, civil and business) fields. Their credo points out the importance of the creative man‟s task: „Our operation is based on the idea that to change ourselves pre-conditions the possible changing of our world. For this instinctive intuition, self-knowledge and real creativity is necessary.” (László, 2006, p. 139.) Their invited members are noted representatives of different artistic branches and famous thinkers (Chinghiz Aytmatov, Maurice Béjart, Arthur C. Clarke, the Dalai Lama, György Solti, Liv Ullmann, Peter Ustinov, Elie Wiesel, Betty Williams).
Representatives of science and the artists with „more sensitive membrane” have become more and more occupied by the relations between humane exploitation of the developing science and the vulnerability of the environment. Until the millennium an army of possible answers have been raised due to the increasing variety of formulating questions and problems, of sketching ways out, of looking for solutions. On the field of arts it resulted in the intensifying of the transient, styleless, eclectic character of postmodernism. On the other
3 There are several homepages on the web that counts the carbon dioxide emission done by a given travel. hand, some signs of general psychosis have become more and more decipherable. Some might say that it is the usual concomitant symptom of the apocalyptic atmosphere of each fin de siècle, but these problems are unfortunately real and more and more serious.
The movement Greenpeace have been initiated during this period (1971) to treat environmental pollution and primarily to obstacle further damage. By saving the vehemence of the beat generation and using the opinion-controlling power of the mass media the movement has grown to be the greatest and most effective civil organisation of the world. Initially a team of several fanatics carrying out partisan actions have now managed to defeat such giants of the global battlefield as Shell and Tesco, or the governments of the US and France. Probably a number of scientists have thought about the ethics of science due to their activity. Their operation proved exemplary for a bunch of environmentally conscious civil organisations, and provided inspirative force for several artists creating ecoart works and actions.
The representatives of land art have set out on their way in this exciting condition on the American continent. One of the most important attributes of land art is to be outside the white cube, we should never forget though that the background of moving out (whose important motivation was a modernist, expansionist endeavour) was art-dealing. The manipulated nature of art life has been clarified even by Tom Wolfe‟s The Painted Word, where some ironic sentences mentions land art, too. But art-dealing and money as motivations of art have been left out from this sardonic writing. However, the part of the market is much larger than what we would think at first glance. Art galleries, allied and financially interwoven with museums, create a network that is capable to regulate the emergence and disappearance of artistic trends according to the market supply and demand. „Before they launch a new artistic trend they raise, purchase and tame for three or four years the small camp that would supply the future great artists. This costs a lot of money. And then they let them on the stage, and buy the whole world press.” (Beke, 1984.) The citation is from Géza Perneczky who then (1984) had lived for some ten years in the West and tried to describe the mechanism of Western art-dealing in order to convince his audience and his interlocutor László Beke about the relative creative freedom of Hungarian artists on a conversation held in the building of the FMK (Independent Art Centre in Hungary). And though at the time artists in Eastern Europe were not forced yet to think about those problems, in the West each artist must have decided about the importance of partaking in the circulation of galleries. It was in their freedom to choose whether they take part in the game or not. In his book ‟Balance: Art and Nature‟ John K. Grande interviews successful artists, among them Liz Magor who, even after (or precisely because) partaking on the Venice Biennale and Documenta declares: „Periodically, I think it would be better to stop making art than to be part of such a compromised activity. I see it as compromised by various things: the market, peoples‟ expectations, and political correctness.” (Grande, 2004, p. 21– 22.) The book later analyses in length the nature of gallery industry, and tries to convince the reader about the necessary distantiation from the system because of its damaging effects on creative sensibility. Though I think that Liz Magor overemphasise the significance of movements operated by museum and gallery system, her simile nevertheless, where she compares artists playing the game of gallery industry to birds bereft of legs, unable to land, unable to rest, damned to circulate in the air continuously, is a picture that is not far away from reality. It shows the power of the industry set up as the central role of the „lord of culture” that it has managed to canonize and incorporate into its own profit-motivated circulation such trends as arte povera or mail art which had initially been born against gallery- elitism with its cheap materials.
We are not able to precisely answer the questions to what degree the refusal of gallery industry‟s requirements and the disgust it caused motivated the exodus from galleries, and whether the immigrants looked upon nature as a field where their activity would not collude with the ethos of any financial system. What is very likely is that the alienation from aesthetical narcissism motivated many artists to create in nature. Especially those whose intuitive depth (indispensable for the creative process) was disturbed by the spotlights.
AMERICA
The Beginnings. Land Art
Land art is not a real movement, it is not a school in the conventional sense. No leaders, no manifestos. It was born somewhat accidentally as a branch of minimalism. „Both trends work with elemental, primary structures which appear in absolutely simplified constructions” (Hajdu, 1975, 1976a, 1976b). Pioneers of the land art had common features: being outside gallery (post-studio attitude), a longing for giant dimensions, expansion, an affection towards earthly and natural elements. Their eldest representative Walter de Maria created the expression land art and formulated its basic ideas. Then Michael Heizer laid the foundations. Until 1968 he had created more than twenty smaller, ephemeral works, and after the 1969 Double Negative he began to create his monumental land art works. The speculative Robert Smithson summed up his experiences in writing (Thibergien, 1995. p. 11-27). Common features of their works are that, once outside the studio, they work in remote places, for instance in the desert, where the works function as minimalist sculptures touching the problematic of structure, material and scale. The system of motives covers the cube, the prism, the cross, the spiral referring to universal values. Pollock‟s famous movements are replaced by the mechanical motions of bulldozers, excavators, steam-rollers, creating thus the prominent sites of gigantic signs (Baker, 1983. p. 70.). Centimetre is replaced by kilometre, kilogram by ton.4
Land art works mark, enhance, sacralise the chosen site which fact reminds us inevitably of their archetypes: the Egyptian pyramids, Maya and Aztec buildings or the enigmatic drawings of the Nazca-desert. The myth of the heroic modern creator presents itself here, a creator who compares himself to the creators of the mentioned eras and try to imitate them in their monumentality.
3. Michael Heizer: Complex, 1972–74 – Aztec pyramid, Mexico, 10th century
4 Heizer moved 240 000 tons of earth while making Double Negative. The choice of site, the use of remote places recalls the typical American attitude towards land; i.e. the land is there to be conquered and used; the revival of the practice of the colonising conquest, of immigration.
4. Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, aerial photographs, 1970
One of the cardinal questions of land art is reception: works are hardly presentable due to their size and location. Thus documentation: film and photo come to the front. „The documentary photograph gets cut off from its object and lives its own life. It even comes to life for the sake of his object: documentation” (Beke, 1972). But the autonomous photograph gets back to the gallery because there happens the „sociological development” (Rosenberg, 1983. p. 194.) In a conversation lead by Harold Rosenberg (Rosenberg, 1983. p. 191.) the four participants, Alan Sonfist, Christo, Les Levine and Dennis Oppenheim disputes at length about the appearance of the documentations of land art works in galleries, only to agree at the end about the necessity of gallery-packaging. Though in an unspoken way, it most probably played a major role in their making a final conclusion to make the documentations, catalogues, films of the works sellable. It must be remarked for their excuse however, that they most often used the incoming money to finance their next projects. The prototype of this artist-enterpreneur is undoubtedly Christo who carries out the financial and organisational preparations for his projects with great proffessionalism until that day.
Land art works, however, provides the visitor on site with another kind of experience besides their message. „When...... ” (Fowkes and Fowkes, 2005). From the perspective of nature art it is a very important inheritance of the land art and would become the basic foundation of nature art later.
Differences of Attitude in the Beginning
The „Machos”
Looking at the grandiose works of the emblematic figures of early land art (Heizer, W. de Maria, Smithson) mobilising huge humane, technical and financial energies we can claim that they demonstrate the creative force of man. In the centre of these artists‟ interest there is not nature, but art and creation; this claim is effectively proven by the fact that they never refer to nature when relating about their art. To the idea that his works would concur industry Heizer gives the following answer: „We live in age of the 747 aircraft, the moon rocket... so you must make a certain type of art.” Smithson would not make a good impression for those concerned about the environment either when he claims: „The ecology thing has a kind of religious ethical undertone to it... a kind of late nineteenth century puritanical view of nature.” (Auping, 1983. p. 95.)
5. Michael Heizer: Double Negative, Nevada, 1969–1970 Neither the perspective of the own logic of classical land art, nor our twenty-five year older perspective shows these claims pleasant. Environmentalists responded with criticism to the statements representing the modernist desire to rule nature even then. Criticism had become more and more edgy when in 1972 they managed to convince Christo creating Running Fence to break the continuity of the wall at some points in order to provide free path for the migration of animals. It is known by less that Smithson had to give up one of his early ideas titled the Island of Broken Glass (he wished to use ten tons of broken glass) due to environmentalist protest. Later he began to negotiate with mine companies that he would recycle the soil they have no use of. In the 1985 work by Heizer titled Effigy Tumuli which reshaped an old mine into green park we can discern a recultivatory operation on land. These examples represent the softening of the radical modernist view of early land art.
6. Michael Heizer: Effigy Tumuli, Illinois, 1985
Middle-on-the-Roaders
To clarify the relationship to nature of the artists of the heroic age we have to touch upon (in an arbitrary and simplifying way) three artists in this group whose work started together with the great earth-movers, but whose attitude greatly differs from theirs. The works of Richard Long, Hamish Fulton and Hans Haacke reflects a sensitive form of intellectual and emotional relationship to the living world. They would not strive for gigantic effect, they do not need technical monsters, rather they establish an intimate contact with nature by minimally rearranging the materials found on spot. This approach is closer to traditional sculpture.
In this case photographs of the works are not simply „documentation” or propaganda. It is not the ephemeral character of the works that makes it necessary to use them. For Richard Long walking is the means to create the work, but the work itself is the photograph that remains (A Line Made by Walking, 1967).5
7. Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking, Anglia, 1967
For the „walking artist” Hamish Fulton6 walk is the work itself – „No walk – no work”, and photograph is merely the „frame” proving the artist‟s presence in nature. According to Fulton an object can never challenge the experience. And though the early work of Haacke titled Sky Line (1967)7 is not at all tiny in its size, but nevertheless it completely lacks the
5 The work is a photograph of the trace in grass left by a walking in straight line. 6 The artist defining himself as „walking artist” has walked in 27 countries of 5 continents since 1969 in the course of his artistic projects. 7 He let helium-filled white balloons in the air fastened to long strings in Central Park, New York. striving for monumentality. Its use of material is fascinating as it uses air, water and ice as means of creation (Fog Water Erosion, 1969).8
These artists exhibit in galleries from the start. They are not motivated by the outbreak from galleries, but rather by the respect and love of nature. Another group of their works is made by galleries from natural materials. (Richard Long: California Wood Circle,91976, Centre Pompidou, Paris). Environmentalism is transformed into a motive in Haacke‟s work when he pronounces a rubbish heap collected from the beach an artwork (Beach Pollution, 1970). The 1972 Rhinewater Purification Plant presents a sensitive eco-attitude worrisome about nature. He fills an aquarium with the dirty water of the Rhine purified by sand- and carbon-filters, and he places goldfish into it. Today‟s American eco-artists regard these works fundamental because their credo presents itself clearly even in these early pieces.
8. Hans Haacke: Rhinewater Purification Plant, Krefeld, Germany, 1972
It is impressive how incoherent the articulation of the concept of land art by the first generation members (too). However, we regard them as par excellence land artists up to this day. „For me ‟land art‟ is an American expression. It means bulldozers and big projects. It seems to be an American movement: it is construction on land that has been bought by artists; its aim is to create a large permanent monument. This does not interest me at all.” (Tiberghien, 1995. 27. o.) Several encoded declaration is hidden in this resolute statement of Richard Long whom I defined before as „middle-on-the-roader”. He defines land art as an American movement which refers to his European ancestry (all the three in this group are Europeans), to European traditions, to the fact that the relationship of the European man to nature is much more differentiated than a Hercules intervening into its established order.
8 He wet the grass in the park of the University of Washington with sprinkling machines, and then made a photograph about the erosion. 9 The artwork was a circle of alluvial wood settled on the floor of the gallery. The Eco-Labourers
Perhaps Alan Sonfist is the only „pure” artist among the artists of land art, earth art and environmental art in a way that he has no past as a sculptor or as a painter and began to act (as an activist too) without any previous detours. It must be added that Sonfist was born in Bronx, and spent his childhood there close to a forest which served him as a hiding place from the streets of violence. According to his own confession his art began when the forest was cleared and its place have been concreted.
In his early works in 1965 he sets „relics” (branches, stones, leaves) on canvas and leave them out in nature to let her paint the picture herself (Element Selection, 1965). In another action he piles some seeds in accordance with the land‟s ecosystem in a heap, and then let the wind and the birds to disseminate them in the park – in cooperation with nature.
Sonfist‟s emblematic work Time Landscape replants a pre-colonial forest in Manhattan which existed before New York was built and which still can be seen as a „monument”. „As in war monuments that record the life and death of soldiers, the life and death of natural phenomena such as rivers, springs and natural outcroppings need to be remembered. Public art can be a reminder that the city was once a forest or a marsh.” – claims Sonfist in an interview with John K. Grande10. Sonfist thus calls us to universally reinterpret the idea of public sculpture in order to gain back its artistic and social importance. In its relation to nature this attitude might be called even revisionist as nature is not conceived as a competitor, the centre of the problem is not the opposition of man and nature. Nature is not the background of human existence; it is not a recreational space; nature is not used or abused by man. „Nature asserts itself as itself.” (Carpenter, 1983. p. 151.)
10 http://www.greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=284
9. Alan Sonfist: Time Landscape, Manhattan, New York, 1965–1978
The idea of Time Landscape was conceived in 1965 but it could have been realised only in 1978 due to bureaucratic processes and permissions. In the creative process it was indispensable to involve scientists (botanists, geologists, city planners); it is a distinctive feature of eco-art which raises questions about the social role of the artist, too. Sonfist considered these questions significant: it is proven by his artistic act of let MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) to inherit his body after his death in order to exhibit it in a transparent vessel as a continuation of his art.
Since the beginning of the ‟70s Helen and Newton Harrison exhibits their „portable farms” recalling laboratory circumstances in different galleries all across the US (Portable Fishfarm, 1971; Portable Farm, 1971 – Hall, 1983. p. 23-24.) This „quasi-scientific” attitude has become more serious with time and they launched their later projects along some important problems cooperating with real scientists. Such are the connection between agriculture and desertification in the Californian desert, the possible causes of melting of glaciers, the effects of acid rain, the interaction of fish population and fishing. To the seemingly reasonable question according to what makes this serial of projects art they gave the even more reasonable answer: „When you read Dostoevsky, why aren‟t you calling it social science?” (Glueck, 1983. p.180.) They observed crabs in laboratory circumstances in Sri Lanka and realised that the lack of natural place of living and environment (monsoon rain or storm) makes them depressive. The study of the Sri Lanka project and the reparation of the discovered phenomenon happened in close collaboration with scientists. The site of the project was the University of California and that signifies the evolution of a new artistic attitude similar to Sonfist‟s. We watch such artists entering the scene who would not work in the solitude of their ivory tower any more, but rather they are able to co-operate with representatives of other disciplines and let the public to get a sight into their artistic process thought to be mystical before.
10. Helen and Newton Harrison: Portable Farm No.6., Houston, 1972
Agnes Denes (Dénes Ágnes) is a an artist from New York of Hungarian origin. About her work Rice, tree, funeral (1968) wrote Peter Selz: „...... ” (The Artist as Universalist....) This statement is important because the idea to connect ecology to an artwork first occured in 1969 related to the work of Hans Haacke on the famous exhibition ‟Earth Art‟ in the White Gallery.
Later works of Agnes Denes bear witness to a high sensitivity towards nature, too. In her work Wheatfield – A Confrontation (1982) she uses the contrast of the huge, oppressive blocks of buildings and the wheat-field to illustrate the conflict of nature and culture. (She revitalised an area and planted it with field in the heart of Manhattan which worth was 4.4 billion dollars then.) From the shining wheat-field you could have seen the emblematic sites of the city and the American culture: the Statue of Liberty, the buildings of Wall Street and the World Trade Center.
11. Agnes Denes: Wheatfield – A Confrontation, Manhattan, New York, 1982
With her another important work done in Finland (Tree – Mountain – A Living Time Capsule, 1992-96) she revitalised a rubbish heap and planted it with pine tree in a spiral pattern. Here a very characteristic principle of eco-thinking is discernable: she found eleven thousand owner for each of the eleven thousand trees who would look after them. While the Rice, Tree, Funeral was made without any significant contribution, Wheatfield – A Confrontation was realised with the help of two assistants and a varying number of volunteers. To create Tree – Mountain – Time Capsule she managed to mobilise eleven thousand people from different countries: prompt them to take up a position and attracted them to actively take part.
These eco-labourers: Sonfist, Denes Agnes and the Harrisons (and there are further examples) instead of creating the poetics of destruction engaged themselves to reveal the troubles of nature creating in the spirit of ecology and environmentalism. Perhaps they have already seen at the beginning that uncontrolled growth, unceasing progress, curiosity and greed have driven mankind to its limits. For them technology is not simply a product or a means but a creative force that shapes our world and our society. They give their vote to the necessity of a new basic consensus, a new „social contract” on which mankind can rest in the future. According to their views a shift of paradigm is necessary that would make a post- materialistic way of thought possible. In the centre there are such psychical values like creativity, self-knowledge, an engagement to nature and by any means the quality of life critically opposed to material values. They realise that it is an opportunity to leave „the unceasing process of methodical incorporating and realising strategies.” (Bischoff, p. 11-12.) It is important to emphasise that the above typology of attitudes towards nature is the result of a rather arbitrary and simplifying grouping. The three attitudes listed above have a number of shades, combinations and variations which are in a constant change today.
Ecovention
As I already mentioned artists acting for making people aware about ecological problems have already appeared in the sixties contemporarily with the so-called classical works of land art. During one or two decades these creators established a good-working eco-art network that greatly contributed to spread eco-conscious thinking across the northern part of the American continent. With the help of their homepages and publications they grew more and more attention, they took part in more and more prominent environment-shaping programmes. Thanks to their information network they involved representatives of other disciplines into the execution of their plans. By the millennium there were a number of eco-art projects whose intention was not to educate to environmental consciousness but explicitly to „heal” polluted, ecologically hurt lands. To discern this kind of works they created the technical term „ecovention” from ecology and intervention. This word became the title of the comprehensive exhibition organised in the Company Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2002. Its aim was to make an inventory in order to survey what happened in this field from the sixties until the millennium.
12. The cover of the catalogue of Ecovention (part), 2002
The trustees of the exhibition ‟Ecovention‟ were two illustrious scholars of the field, gallery owner Sue Spaid and the head of The Fields Sculpture Park in New York, Amy Lipton. They managed to get some famous sponsors to realise the exhibition. It was significant that they could have won such a „great polluter” for the „good cause” like Delta Airlines. In the preface of the exhibition‟s catalogue (Spaid, 2002) the head of the Arts Center Charles Desmarais named ecovention a „contemporary artistic tactic” emphasising its constructive character. Furthermore, he calls upon the artists of the late two hundred years to account for the giving up of this constructive attitude for the sake of metaphoric expression and critical view. In accordance with the summarising nature of the exhibition the catalogue lists all the significant events regarding eco-art chronologically, from the sixties until the millennium. It shows not merely the plans but their realising process, too, including financial background work and the explanations and definitions of relevant fundamental concepts. In the catalogue such theoreticians appreciate the exhibition and write about the goals, tasks and fruits of this new „artistic tactic” like Helen Mayer Harrison, Newton Harrison, Arthur C. Danto, Suzi Gablik, Thom Collins.
However, these writings do not give a satisfying answer to a quite significant question occurring when one thinks about this genre. The question is that in what aspect this artistic invention differs from the work of land architects, horticulturists, architects or eco-activists. Its aesthetic dimension is even slighter than that of eco-art, and basically equals to that of the work of the above mentioned experts. Naturally, in the case of ecovention the sanctifying force of the white cube would not help either. The relating discourse will be defined by canonising processes in the future.
EUROPE
Western Europe
Though the artists classified under the term „middle-on-the-roader” were all of European origin, it was nevertheless consequential to analyse their work in the framework of American land art because as they were regular participants of important American exhibitions their work became a characteristic branch of the sixties‟ American scene; the novelty and the distinctive feature of their activity could have thrived in this context.11 At that time we would not find on the continent a coherent, programmatic series of events. The turn to nature happened only by the middle and the end of the seventies with the emergence of a generation of artists claiming a continuity with the work of Richard Long and Fulton. The generation aspiring to a symbiosis with nature is represented by such names as Andy Goldsworthy (1956), Udo Nils (1937), Giuliano Mauri (1938) or David Nash (1945). For them the connection between creative work and nature is of primary importance, a field where experimentation is not merely formal. These artists have reached such areas via their aesthetic reflexions where politics proves to be ineffective, and thus they have made evident the close relationship between culture, art and nature. Expressed with a simile: „...... ” (Bischoff, 1999, p. 11.) The deserting of the gallery is important for them, too, and the creative process happens mostly „outside”, however, we can see the accomplished frottages in galleries, and even find frottages of frottages in the shops of museums, on the web, from where we can take them home, hang them on our walls in the form of posters.
11 Hamish Fulton accomplished his first walk in South Dakota, 1969.
13. Udo Nils: Entrance, Dietenbronn, Germany, 1993
Artists from different regions of Europe set out with different motivations. In Italy the attraction of arte povera towards primitive lands distant from civilisation and public is dominant. In Germany the activism of Joseph Beuys helped to strengthen the movement, while in England the influence of Buddhism was decisive. Since the middle of the eighties a series of arts centres have been established that hold their symposiums and nature art events far away from the cities: in country surroundings, in parks of hidden castles, along the beach or on the territory of deserted coal mines. The most eminent ones are the first arts centre established in 1986 in Northern Italy, Arte Sella, Centre International d‟Art et Sculpture in Cretet, Southern France, Tranekær International Art and Nature Center in Denmark (Tickon), or the sounding Europa-Biennale in Niederlausitz near Cottbus, Germany. Among the regularly invited names of these centres there are the famous European artists like Udo Nils, Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash, Hermann Prigmann or Giuliano Mauri. But important artists outside Europe often visit the events like Alan Sonfist, Helen and Newton Harrison or the Japanese Hiroshi Teshigara.
After a while heads and curators of famous institutions who prefer grandiose events have started to think about how works born in these centres could be mapped in order to sketch the theoretical background of the movement and to determine the direction of this naturally free and undomesticated creative approach. They managed to bring even the works of arte povera into the galleries, into the collection of museums, and incorporate them into commercial circulation, so they justly thought that they managed to do so with the works of this new trend. The idea was conceived by Vittorio Fagone12 and Dieter Ronte13 during the 1989 Venetian Biennale. Soon they were joined by such famous trustees as Volker Kinnius14, Elmar Zorn15, and Jacques Leenhardt16. In the same year they organised the first conference of the trend called Art in Nature in Wien where they showed nature-related projects of more than a hundred artists. This was followed by further symposiums and conferences in Italy (Trentino), in Saxony, in Southern France and in Denmark (Tikon). As Dieter Ronte‟s study in the volume ‟Art in Nature‟ (1996) points out: trustees and critics who looked upon nature art works as cultural products only slowly began to realise how important mediating role these works might have in making people aware of problems of nature. Following this recognition the idea was born that in contrast to their practice hitherto museums should be financially involved into the realisation of nature art works. In my view at this point the originally good- hearted initiation made a mistake. During the beginning and the middle of the nineties it was probably not clear that the most important immanent feature of these works is freedom, the independence from institutional systems, commercial pressure, popular demands, changing trends. For the logic of museums it is inconceivable though to finance uncontrollable projects which do not fit into the system of museums. It is usually impossible to clarify proprietary rights at all, as the work in its corporeal reality, most often following its own rules, returns to nature, and the most the artist could own is copyright. The lack of this recognition leaded to those gigantic plans of nature art exhibitions which would have been realised in the course of high budget events. First they meditated about the Festwoche in Wien, then they considered the 1995 Wien-Budapest Expo as appropriate location. Several preparatory conferences were held in Wien which were, as it turned out later, all useless. A Nature Art project office was established in Munich, then another in Paris, and an American office was planned, too. At last it seemed that Hannover 2000 World Expo would be the most suitable to realise the large-
12 Head of the Galleria d‟ Arte Moderna di Bergamo, scientific director of the Nuova Accademia di Belli Arti di Milano, curator of the 1978 Venetian Biennale and Documenta 8. 13 Head of the Muzeum Moderner Kunst, Wien until 1990, afterwards head of the Kunstmuzeum, Bonn. 14 Art theoretician and gallery owner from Munich. 15 Art historian, curator; teaches in Munich, Wien, Naples and New York. 16 Ex-president of AICA, now head of the Crestet. scale ‟Art in Nature‟ because its thematic range17 indeed covered the intentions of the organisers. The success18 of the „Ressource Kunst” exhibition and those feedbacks of the audiences‟ changing aesthetic sensibility, the new priority of „non-artificial” materials and objects, natural ready-mades (greatly differing from Duchamp‟s industrial ready-mades) were all played a definitive part in that the plan still survived. As the exhibition ‟Art in Nature‟ has not been realised, ‟Ressource Kunst‟ remains the only summarising programme in Europe up to that day. The only tangible result of the large-scale but unrealised project is the volume ‟Art in Nature‟ which attempts to report on the situation by observing and presenting events and happenings on the „borders” (Scandinavia, Southern Europe, East-Central Europe), too. The volume also explains why the grandiose plan has failed. In his study Elmar Zorn (Zorn, 1996) gives account of the negotiations with representatives of the financial world, politicians, bankers, potential sponsors. In accordance with the volume of the project the quantity of money under discussion was significant, and, as Zorn‟s surprisingly open report tells us, after the initial enthusiasm such opposing interests began to develop that raised conflicts. As a result, sponsors and curators who preferred more conventional interpretations of art have slowly begun to leave the still pliable plan. The art organising devil‟s kitchen to which Zorn‟s study hints is altogether alien to nature art which carefully watches its own intimate playground, and consequently rejects the board game directed by museum chiefs.
The centres mentioned above are still functioning today despite the failure – with the exception of the one in Niederlausitz. Besides them a number of new centres with similar profiles have been established all across Europe. Clive Adams is the head of CCANW (Centre for Contemporary Art and Natural World in England) which is located in a 1400 ha forest near Bristol; they have a permanent programme and full-time employees, and, in addition to the exhibitions, thematic lectures and resident programmes enrich the schedule for three hundred thousand visitors per year. ‟Arts Nature‟ is held yearly with noted experts involved by a tourism development office in Middle-France. But there are also some periodically held programmes such as ‟Natur Kunst Forum‟ during the time of Documenta; it is located in
17 ‟The relationship of mankind, technology and nature. The ways to use future technology while preserving nature.‟
18 The concept of the exhibition was elaborated by Michael Hardter, Per Hovdennak, Elisabeth Jappe, Georg Jappe and Bernd Schulz, and it has been shown in Berlin, Saarbrücke, München and in Műcsarnok, Budapest in 1990.
Licherode, near Kassel, and financed by a regional association19 between settlements organised along principles of environmentalist thinking. These centres do their high-standard activity without any exhibitionism and avoid any participation in centralised cultural political strategies.
It is a good thing that a positive change has occurred in the field of education, too. The first course in Europe was launched by the Royal Society of Arts titled ‟Ecology and Art‟. On similar courses started at Bicton College and the University of Plymouth students can receive a degree. These modest initiations do not mean any breakthrough though; nature art still has a thought-provokingly slight significance in European education. Especially when we compare it to that of media art.
Joseph Beuys
When he happened to clarify the notion of expanded art, social plastic arts Beuys was never short of provocative, startling expressions, thus hinting at the significance of the problem. He openly declared that he was not interested any more by the petty, pseudo-cultural functioning of „modern art industry” about which I said a few words in the previous chapter. „In our days the leading force is not art but economy. And woe to the artist whose art cannot grab the heart of the system. Woe to the artist ...... ” (Bunge etc.) For Beuys it was desirable to free the artist from economical constraint. He thought that an artist should be satisfied with little. Seemingly in opposition with this idea, but in reality giving a fig to the financial system, he financed a significant part of the expenses of 7000 Oaks from the income of a Japanese whiskey ad. In Beuys‟ intention this work meant a gesture to launch an eco-tendency. By partaking in the foundation of the Green Party he also wanted to clean the picture of the artist‟s social role. To change this role is a central element of his Social Plastic Arts.
19 See: www.prmf.de
14. Joseph Beuys: 7000 Oaks, archive, 1982
Beuys saw it clearly that the autonomous artist had already realised by the renaissance that the main source of the creator is her-/himself. For him the connection between the strengthening „individualisation” during the course of history, the growing number of artistic- like products and the elimination of collective styles was evident.
His charismatic personality and his provocative but straightforward declarations have permeated the thought of forthcoming generations of artists giving a huge impetus to the evolution of nature art and preparing the idea of crossing the borders of science and arts. His influence can be evidently measured on the work of those artists (George Detzler, Anke Mellin, François Frechet) who function as trustees, lecturers, study-writers, and co-operate with the press and with scientists in ecological questions besides their artistic activities.
Eastern Europe
In the comprehensive volume ‟Art in Nature‟ edited by Vittorio Fagone László Beke (1996) claims concerning the land art in Eastern Central Europe that in spite of the influence of land art and similar initiations from the sixties the works in this region do not show a coherent environmental, philosophical and ecological programme. According to Beke these artists were rather motivated by the experiments to find new forms of expression or by the avoidance of the control of the authorities. In the seventies several groups of artists with similar conception and similar motivations have appeared. Their motives were the search after new forms of expression and the endeavour to synchronise their activities with those of Westkunst. I would pick out three such groups: Pécsi Műhely (Pécs Workshop), Group Sigma from Temesvár (Timisoara, Rumania), Group Bosch+Bosch from Szabadka-Újvidék (Subotica-Novi Sad, Serbia). All of them were driven out from studios by their experimental, expansionist attitudes. Without any „green” idea they used spaces far away from closed rooms to emphasise their concepts. Instead of the white walls of galleries they chose forests, quarries, riversides for their actions, or manipulated photographs taken at such places. Their activities should be treated on the basis of the same principle because all the three groups count as important points of reference in the art of the seventies in the given countries.
Another path leading to land art was initiated from sculpture-installation, looking for the answer to the question „the sculpture of space or the space of sculpture”. Magdalena Abakanovicz (Poland), Wanda Mihuleac (Rumania) and Petre Nikolski (Yugoslavia) emphasised the context with their sculptures set into land. They expanded the environment of the sculpture and integrated it into the artwork depriving the land from being simply a background. It is a strange mixture of the old creative approach and the evolving new creative gesture: of the creative intervention (the sculpture) reflecting primarily on the artist, of „inventio” and of nature.
15. Magdalena Abakanowicz: Negev, Jerusalem, 1987
The predecessor of this kind of artistic approach is Branșusi whose emblematic works in Turgu-Jiu park (The Table of Silence, Endless Column, or The Gate of Kiss) give an important role to the context of the artwork and the environment.
Ulrich Bischoff in the catalogue of the exhibition ‟Ressource Kunst‟ (1990) discerns two kinds of creative methods aspiring towards gigantic forms based on the already mentioned work Five Continents Sculpture by Walter de Maria. The first one is named „large gesture” which treats the raw material as available and transforms it in a way that turns away from quality towards quantity. The second one is the „small gesture”, a modest intervention that does not fundamentally change the place; it is only a commentary, an interpretation, creating an opportunity to view the place with a different eye. As we have already seen, in the beginning and the middle of the seventies the representatives of the „large gesture” were dominant, especially on the American continent. „Small gesture” was practised mainly in Europe, especially on its Eastern half: partly due to lack of money, partly due to lack of suitable network of galleries. But the main reason is the suffocating political atmosphere and the hiding away from cultural political authorities which almost compels artists to modest creative actions that most of the time remains their intimate acts without any high quality documentation.
Influenced by the sixties hippie movements a number of artists of this region choose retirement from social life, commune lifestyle instead of urban intellectual existence. Examples are Bogdan and Witold Chmielewski in Poland, Božidar Mandić in Yugoslavia, and the commune in Šempas, Slovenia. These artists have found small villages in the middle of nowhere to live their lives and to create their art. It is a „permanent alliance” with nature whose ritual is village life itself and whose escape is the critique of urban life, the demonstration of „private shifts of paradigm”. „... they wished to create a new tradition with the help of the new ritual determined by the changing of seasons, agriculture, birth and death, Christian and pagan feasts, and based on universal values – or, more precisely, they wished to restore the old one.” (Wróblewska, 1994. p. 104.) Miroslav Mandić chose the Fultonian expressive (life)form within the boundaries of precisely shaped concept. He made drawings, notes during his long walks, but the most important motive is the drawing of the directions made by walking itself which hints at the nature of the basic concept. (The Rose of Europe). The perhaps most characteristic representative of small gesture is the Polish artist Teresa Murak. Since the beginning of her studies she is continuously occupied by nature using plants, earth, seeds, water and the humane body itself as artistic material. In her natural action she germinates plants by her own body‟s warmth; the central motive of the three days‟ action is the most intimate motive of human nature: the mystical wonder of life-giving. Her engagement to nature remains consequent, and she takes part, though not too frequently, in all the important exhibitions organised around that theme (‟Ideal City – Invisible Cities‟, ‟Kunst und Natur‟, ‟Ressource Kunst‟). Murak is not a well-known artist, but when we consider the difficulties of the East European artist to develop an international career, then this fact would not lessen the significance of her art. It proves only the lack of Western-like art industry in this part of Europe which emphasises events happening here even more.
In the beginning of the seventies an important, typically East European element has enriched the expressive inventory of nature art. At that time the so-called modern neo- avantgarde trends and expansionist, experimental aspirations meet with the traditions of living folklore (Novotny, 1982, p. 32.) Living folklore (meaning either the transforming of everyday objects, instruments of rural life into materials of art, or attributing an „artistic” quality to rural space) is not everywhere present in East European art, and its presence takes different forms in each countries.
Władysław Hasior‟s sculptures recall procession banners, tabernacles, reliquaries of Polish folk religion. Due to the slowness of urbanisation, the industrial backwardness, the closedness of the country and the restricted possibilities of travelling in Romania most of the people lived in the context of living folklore, and official politics in its fear of modern values also supported folk art. In spite of this, with a paradox turn showing the nonsense logic dictatorship in its „clarity” the same political government aspired to eliminate rural lifestyle, the hotbed of folk art with its destruction of villages. Artists survived the hard decades of dictatorship with the most different strategies. Several artists who studied at different art centres escaped back to their place of birth, in some cases to tiny villages; most of them realised in an almost spontaneous way the necessity of the Bartókian pure source and translated it into visual language. There were several methods to exercise this difficult creative practice in Romania. Some used the contextual possibilities given by rural space (Ana Lupas, Humid Installation, 1970)20; others searched for the mythical-religious elements
20 In: Cârneci, 1997. p. 235. and the agricultural tools of folklore, interpreted them as ready-mades and defined them as artworks (Novotny, 1989, p. 32.) (Ana Lupas, Solemn Process. 1964-74)21.
16. Ana Lupas: Humid Installation, 1970
In his 1970 article Petru Comarnescu compares folk customs to „the happenings of today” (1970, p. 35.) Gheorghe Ilea consecrates the yard of a peasant house to become the „place of art” and he does his personal series of actions here.
17. Gheorghe Ilea: Garbage Dump, 1994
These artistic attitudes found the contact in nature through peasant culture where the main character is the farmer, the artist of nature who knows all of her vibrations, lives in a symbiosis with nature and does not intend either to exploit or to overpower her.
The festival AnnART was held between 1991 and 1999 near Lake Saint Anna in the Eastern Carpathians, far away from urbanisation. The event originates from the land actions
21 In: Ibid p. 228–229. of Imre Baász and Gusztáv Ütő co-operating with members of the MAMŰ association. These land action might be conceived as part of a „marching out” from the cavilling of the cultural policy. By the middle of the nineties the series have grown to be international events. In 1994, as a member of the group Túlsó Part (Opposite Bank) I myself took part on AnnART and then I had the opportunity to experience the novelty of the event. To recall the atmosphere let me cite the 1993 statement of the organiser Gusztáv Ütő which hints at the essence of the concept: „The Carpathian curve is a boundary and a link at the same time. The meeting point of the Eastern and the Western Empire, the Byzantium and Rome, the orthodox and the catholic church; it is the scene of their overlaps. The scene of AnnART however, the crater was the ritual border fortress of the pagan era; the ancestors of performers had functioned here. Shamanism, sacrifices, drum, rattle, tinkler, contacting the winds were everyday activities. And then once the pope has built his chapel here, too. That‟s why we have chosen Saint Ann‟s Day for the time our program. Catholic procession, mass starting at 4 pm, church tinklers, coloured banners, the amplified voice of the priest of Bikszád, the choir of believers – all this strict canonical happening provides a special contrast for the performances built on art‟s holy freedom.”22
18. The performance of Shiobara Yasouori és Yean-ette Betts, AnnArt 9, 1998
22 Magyar Narancs, 1993. augusztus 5., p. 8. As you might see above, the creations on AnnART, deprived of any urban setting or props, have come into being from the co-influence of sacred rituals, natural environment and the artists‟ intentions. During the several days‟ camping partakers and the numerous visitors could have experienced the inner coherence of being together, and the possibility of co- operation with the natural environment through the creative process. The fact that such a remote place of Europe had provided site for an internationally high-ranked event proves the invalidity of the hierarchy of centre-periphery. With the cessation of AnnART a white spot appeared on the map of the region which has still not been covered whether it is seen from the perspective of action art or from that of nature art.
Hungary
By the end of the sixties the claim to follow Western art was discernable in Hungary, and within this framework the „working method of creating art in nature and with nature”. Great earth moving works comparable to the American ones could have not come into being due to lack of uncultivated, deserted land (just like in the rest of Europe); and, additionally, as János Sturcz rightly notes, financial support was lacking, too, as the only potential art sponsor was the state who played down (or, in „better” cases, ignored) these endeavours.
The aversion from monumentality was further inspired by the fact, as Sturcz adds, that monumentality „have always been connected to politically oriented art committed to the state and to existing power relations”. Hungarian „art has always had stressed political-ethical tones and engagements which were at odds both with the apolitical nature of land art‟s cosmic geometry and with the pure pantheism of the previously mentioned trends”. (Sturcz, 1994. p. 152.)
Pécsi Műhely (Pécs Workshop)
The aspiration towards synchronicity inspired members (Tamás Aknai, Ferenc Ficzek, Károly Halász, Károly Kismányoki, Sándor Pinczehelyi, Lajos Szelényi and Kálmán Szíjártó ) of the Pécs Workshop to adopt an experimental attitude which was aimed at expanding the space of art. In the framework of their „visual operations” „they asked questions >>from the land<< about dimensions of space, about the mixing of different simple groups of elements, about the harmony of homogeneity and heterogeneity.” (Aknai, 1995. p. 45.) The proof for the desire to be in synchronicity is that Károly Halász in fact established a contact with Smithson and commemorated him after his death (1973) with a land art work on the riverside of the Danube in Paks.
Open air works of the Pécs Workshop might be related to classic land art works (they themselves considered those works important), however, for them the concept is the dominant element: intervention is hardly measurable or the work is realised only on paper („Land Corrections”, 6-10 July, 1972.)
19. Halász Károly: Tájkorrekció (Land Correction), 1972
Fáskör (Wooden Circle)
Members of the Wooden Circle (Géza Samu, András Huber, Péter Orosz, László Farkas, Géza Ferenc Varga) are called nature sculptors by Tibor Wehner in his study (1999). As he puts it, these artists „have abandoned the conventional ways of classical sculpture to choose and work with materials, to organise space, to shape forms and mass, and they represented a mentality never known before.” This unknown mentality might be interpreted as a novel alliance with nature in which the use of natural materials is regarded self-evident. Its novelty lays in its methods to work on the material.
Instead of sculptor‟s tricks members of the Wooden Circle shape the material with thousand years‟ craft techniques: bending, fastening, jointing are their main methods with which they operate suggesting mildness and respect towards the material and towards an archaic folk culture that slowly disappears. This low-key, modest way of working inspires us to find meaning in the seemingly slender material. These sculptures are made of wood, tow, textile, phloem, branches, stumps, reed; and the setting of the works is an essential aspect. There is a sensible claim of union with nature, with the place and the land. (Géza Ferenc Varga, Iguana, 1983; Péter Orosz, Mandolin, 1989; András Húber, Midnight Bull, 1992.) The working method of Wooden Circle and its gentle approach towards nature makes it evident for me that among Hungarian artists they get the closest to the concept of nature art. In relation with the activity of the group we need to mention the Nagyatád Colony of Wood- Carvers, the centre of Hungarian wood-carving. In 1984 a number of Fáskör-artists and some members of Young Artists Studio conceived plans for such a grand land-building programme that would have transgressed the frames of a conventional statue park. The remaining documents tell us that they planned statues and such works that would have needed several years and great mobilisations of earth. The works „have never been realised (not even in parts!)” 23 for reasons unclear. Despite the fact that the large-scale plan have been realised merely in conception its claim for a landscape park representing a quite novel nature- perception is clear.
Organic Architect Groups
By the end of the seventies some Hungarian architects (György Csete, Dezső Ekler, Imre Makovecz) were interested in resolving the conflict between nature and culture. These architects and their students were motivated by the consequences of great sociological, urbanising and psychological realignments of suburban housing estates, and thus they moved their attention towards natural materials. They experimented with form in order to get familiar with natural materials; the results of these experiments, the buildings themselves are quite
23 Tájszerkesztési program. Nagyatádi tájpark létesítés: 1984-ben. (jegyzőkönyv) similar to the works of famous Western European land artists. Their collective works (Hive, Bridge, Tower, Sign, Cave, Capsule, Shepherd Buildings) done in the Visegrad camp or on the Hortobágy Puszta (though the artists themselves are probably not aware of their values) are comparable to contemporary works of Long or Udo Nils both from the aspect of artistic expressivity and in their emphasis on the alliance with nature.
20.Works of the participants of Visegrad Architect Camps 1985, 1986, 1987
21. Udo Nils: The Nest, Lüneburg Heath, Germany, 1978
The results of this consequent and coherent programme were shown on the 1991 Venice Biennale where they became world-famous deservedly. I am confident that if at that time the boundaries between fine art and architecture were not so rigid, the representatives of the two disciplines would have taken fascinating, enriching impact on each other.
The MAMŰ association
Though the MAMŰ Association is active again since its 1991 reunion, I will expose here only its initial period (1979-1983) in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş, Romania) since from the aspect of landscape art these few years were the most significant for the association as well as for their impact on Transylvanian fine arts. I personally feel important to emphasise their activity since as a high school student I contacted them and thus they may have even unintentionally influenced the beginnings of my career. The core of the group was constituted by young artists who arrived in the city after their studies; they were surrounded by musicians, literary scholars, actors, and a number of „enthusiastic amateurs”. Outcaste from places of exhibition they wandered around fields outside of „classical genres” with limitless desire for freedom and willingness for experimentation. After the initial performances and happenings on parties they soon found their own sacred „playgrounds” in natural environment, the so-called Waterhills which are geometrically shaped mounds of earth and perhaps served once as burying-places.
22. A Vízeshalmok (The Waterhills) They carried out their community forming „land actions” here; and waterhills provided the place for those „nature installations” which were initially based most on private mythologies. Later elements of the then alive folk culture, experiences of rural life and the paraphernalia of folklore have appeared in the works of these artists who came from villages almost without exception. In an article by the central figure of the group, Károly Elekes (1983, p. 12.) is a proper illustration of the personal, culturally permeated approach of the artists of MAMŰ towards „Westkunst”. „Once I scratched a fissure-net into fresh sludge; after drying the fissures crisscrossed my putatively real drawing, and I discovered that at some places the lines of the drawing and the fissure have overlapped one another. And then I felt that which I could not have deciphered with either brush, pruning knife or photograph: I worked together with an energy whose laws I happened to discover and it accepted me.” A crystallised nature art attitude-credo. It goes on like this: „After this I watched the changes of nature with a different eye. I know that those parallel ditches that cut the meadow into two have been shaped by the traces of two wagons tied down; that the freshly cleared part of the forest might be solemn: the shining annual rings like obelisk pedestals, the trunks affect me like tumbled columns of a great building. The sight of the hazy, gleaming plastic bags fastened onto the sprouts of young pine plantations reminded me of huge glass chandeliers. Other fascinating scenes were the fields made sculpturesque by ploughing or the fan-like drawings of the wandering scythe. On hillsides the staggered paths of cattle constitute ziggurats; and the erected beam arches of field-guard-houses that lost their floors look like the remains of an ancient animal. I recognised that the cow tied to the pole leaves a spiral-shaped trace in the ground since the coiling rope draws it nearer and nearer to the pole. This reminds me of Smithson‟s Spiral Jetty or the stairway to the tower of Babel.” In 1981 Elekes saw the exhibition titled „Natur und Skulptur” in Altes Museum, Stuttgart, where all the prominent land artist were present with their works or documentations. His article contains the names of Smithson, Udo Nils, Michael Singer, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton. With his statement Elekes positions himself into the intersection of folk culture and neo-avantgarde creative behaviour, similarly to those Romanian artists that I mentioned some pages earlier. He makes it clear that the centre of his artistic ambition is not invention but rather discovery and wonder.
23. A typical MAMŰ work at Waterhills, 1982
He leaves the aggressive rearrangement of the world to the architects‟ centralised work in the capitol; he himself is satisfied with the „small gesture”, far away from the absurdities of contemporary cultural policy. During actions carried out in the villages the important thing was not merely the setting but the interaction with peasants, with these artists of nature. „There was a unique (and I am afraid unrepeatable) moment: the adventurous meeting of village people with fine arts. Adventurous since with the works there were the artists themselves: with their own personal fallibility. People received them in enormous »quantity«, overpowering, shocking” – as violin-player János Selmeczi reports the event (Szász, 1981.) Most members of the MAMŰ had moved to Hungary where they reactivated the association. Here they lack the inspiration gained from the „sacred environment” of Waterhills and the everyday ritual of Transylvanian villages‟ folk customs. They could not continue their programme. Though members of the association have prepared „close to nature” works, they participated in the exhibition „Természetesen” (Naturally) in 1994 which summarised similar projects of the region, and there is an analysis of their work in the catalogue, however, their works in the beginning of the eighties testified a more novel and intimate „alliance with nature”. This claim is supported by the fact that these Waterhills works are exposed in the East European section of the volume Art in Nature (edited by Vittorio Fagone, the section written by László Beke). The volume provides the context for MAMŰ‟s works at last; and even in this élite company MAMŰ represent justly the artistic activity of this part of Europe.
NATURE ART IN EASTERN CULTURE – INTRODUCTION
In March 2008 there was a nature art exhibition from the works of Korean and German artists in MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest; I was the trustee of this event (‟Upon Nature‟, from 30 March until 27 April, 2008.). Besides the German artists Anke Mellin and Gerd Logeman the Korean group of artists Yatoo24 was present. In connection with the exhibition we organised a lecture on nature art in the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. In the first part Anke Mellin presented the history of land art through classical works25 more or less known in Hungary emphasising their expansionist, monumentalist character. Following this the Korean Jeon Won-gil gave a presentation about the activity of the group Yatoo. The works chosen helped us to have a clue of Korean nature art; the synoptic view was widened further by a bunch of catalogues and contemporary documentations. The audience was evidently embarrassed by the two presentations, and perhaps the speakers themselves were surprised by what they had seen and heard. Namely, it became totally clear how large the difference is between the Western and the Eastern creative attitude. The first presentation told us about the myth of the heroic creator, the praise of the ego, and about man‟s desire to rule nature. In contrast with this the Korean presentation spoke about the respect the Eastern artist feels towards nature, it showed their co-operation and the enviable intimacy of their relationship. In the centre of their attention there is the whole universe, both living and inanimate. Man is not posited as the centre of the world but rather as a conscious being who is able to posit oneself into that system. That was the day I understood the real significance of the terms „large gesture” and „small gesture” used by Ulrich Bischoff (1990). I deliberately chose this location for the exhibition since I formerly worked in Yatoo‟s colony in Korea and little by little got to know their history. Then I began to realise that the group Yatoo and the artists connected to MAMŰ started to work in nature at the same period independently from each other, on two far away spots of the world, and they created works with very similar intentions, shaped by the technique of „small gesture”.
24 The group Yatoo was founded in 1981 in the city of Gongju. Since their foundation they consequently represent nature art. See www.natureartbiennale.org 25 Smithson: The Spiral Jetty, 1971; Heizer: Double Negative etc.
24. MAMŰ: The Great Sausage, 1981
25. Yatoo, Four Seasons Workshop, 1981
That was the time I began to wonder how this almost uncanny parallelism could have been born in these so distant and different cultures. Since I was familiar with both groups I was curious about their reactions. The effect was what I expected: both sides first wondered at and then recognised each other. This claim was supported by the attention-raising article26 by Anke Mellin on the Greenmuseum homepage. The reasons and essence of the simultaneity of this phenomenon was not altogether clear for me then; the thing crystallised in me later: after
26 www.greenmuseum.org (12.05.2008. – the published writing is no longer available)
I studied the biography of members of MAMŰ Association, and had long conversations with members of Yatoo. The immigration to nature was motivated in both cases by the ressentiment against the reigning dictatorship, and consequently by the decreasing possibilities to exhibit works. The similarity between their attitudes towards nature is based on the analogy of, on one hand, religion as a cultural background and the object-creating aesthetics of Sŏn in the Korean group, and, on the other hand, the rural, close-to-nature life experience of the members of the Marosvásárhely group.
26. Yatoo work from 1982. 27. MAMŰ work from 1982 Both attitudes rest on the co-operation with nature and her forces. In addition, the aesthetics of folk object-culture is not far away from the object-creating method of the Sŏn. I would direct the reader back to the citation from Károly Elekes above (1983. p. 50-51.). From his observations it turns out that his experience of agricultural work was an experience of nature. The characteristic feature of the Eastern people, the close-to-nature attitude springing from religion and culture, could have been found in the eighties in this Eastern corner of Europe where due to lack of industrial development folk culture was functioning. This fact is already an evidence that industrial development, by raising a seemingly easier alternative, distance us from nature, and only after a long detour, by recognising the consequences of distantiation, can we try to get back to the original order of things.
In order to review some contemporary Asian nature art events it is useful to briefly look through how the art of previous periods and Eastern culture at all approaches nature since the fundament of this culture is religion based on Eastern philosophy. (On this huge continent the most prevalent religions are Chinese Universalism, Hinduism and Buddhism.) In the forthcoming chapters I will present in a nutshell the perception of nature in Eastern religions and cultures since it is the most important factor behind the differences of (nature)art-conception of the East and the West. And probably here lies the explanation for the strange analogy between the works of MAMŰ and Yatoo. The concept of religiousness means something different from what Western people would think of based on their own experiences. The mediators and authors of written sources always took it as their task to adjust the doctrines to the needs of the present. The religions were overlapping and were in symbiosis with each other; and all of the systems of belief were in close and organic contact with natural religions. They believe in gods of the Sun and the Moon and the elements which has a great impact on the Asian man‟s relationship with Nature. The most ancient systems of belief are Hinduism and Chinese Universalism, but due to its geographical expansion Buddhism might be regarded to be the most important one. It spread all over Asia, including India and China, and it became dominant in the continent at certain periods. The tolerance of Buddhism is testified by the fact that, in contrast with other religions, Buddhism does not aspire for exclusivity and does not demand from their members to give up their relations to other religions. Buddhism was capable to exist in syncretism with other religions, to adopt other‟s doctrines and to pass on their own. It is not by chance then that in the course of times it became the adhesive between Asian religions. Through Indian and Chinese mediation it spread to Korea, and then to Japan where it came through a „reformation”, got stripped off of its ritual ceremonies, and lives further on as Zen Buddhism in symbiosis with the Japanese natural religion Shinto.
INDIA
The Perception of Nature in Hinduism
Hinduism is one of the most ancient and still living religion with its four thousand years past. This constantly changing and dynamically developing religious system is the world view of approximately 900 million Indian people. The adherents call it sanatana dharma, i.e. „the religion of the eternal law”. Similarly to Chinese Universalism it is not founded on divine revelation, there is no founder. Hinduism is a specific formation of the extraordinarily differentiated layers of the Indian social system. Its system of belief is unbelievably complicated and labyrinthine. To express it with a simile: if we think of other religions as planned gardens that had been carefully kept under the course of the centuries, then Hinduism is like a jungle free to grow wild with only a few paths. Main gods and goddesses have several shapes and names; their circles are enriched by numerous inferior deities of earlier mythologies; and there are also some demons and spirits in this religious cosmos. Idolatry and veneration towards animals (cow, monkeys), plants (lotus), mountains and rivers have survived in Hinduism. Main gods are Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer and re-creator. With time the concept of World Soul have evolved, however, which means that the whole of the universe is constituted by an eternal, infinite, unchanging and united spiritual being, and objects and creatures are merely its different phenomena. The roots of Hinduism in the valley of the Indus River reaches back to the culture existing before the first Aryan occupation (18th century BC). The clergy, or the Brahmans (hence the name: Brahmanism) integrated the ancient religion of Aryan settlers with that of the aboriginals. The religion incorporated all kinds of external doctrines and cultic elements during the course of time. It differs from other world religions by its lack of dogmas and any missionary activities, and by its tolerance. For Hindus the religious and the social are inseparable. Practice of faith is in organic relationship with the caste system, the hierarchic stratification of religious and social layers. The place one occupies within the hierarchy is determined by the measure of the moral and physical purity of one‟s way of life.
28. Hindu priest, Boguhua, India, 2008
On the highest rank there is the caste of teachers (priests, Brahmins). Members are occupied with intellectual activities and preserve themselves from impurity. The second caste is constituted by the Kshatriyas (warriors) who secure the stability of the social order. They are followed by the Vaishya caste of stock-breeders, farmers, traders and craftsmen. People of the lowest rank of the hierarchy (Sudras and Paraiyars) are engaged in impure things. The outcastes, the lowest rank possible are the class of untouchables (Harijans) and the people of other religions. The constant circulation of birth, death and rebirth, and the constant self-re-creating of the universe are two fundamental doctrines of Hinduism (there is neither beginning, nor end, nor any singularly significant moment since everything is constantly on the fall and then on the rise). Another determining belief is that each human deed and thought has consequences which the individual have to abide. The essence of the idea of soul migration is that the given body of present reincarnation depends on the way the soul followed its caste‟s rules during the previous incarnation. After the rebirth it is not possible to transgress into another caste, however. With time the individual may free oneself from the chain of constant rebirths to reach the condition of nirvana (Glasenapp, 1987.). Religious order determines everyday life, law, regulations of eating in many ways. Religion is not merely the framework of faith but expands itself on the whole life. It regulated adherents‟ lives to their most intimate details, from morning cleaning wash through eating to sacred acts. There are different instructions for the different castes that include almost 3000 different groups. According to their view everything in the world is part of the universal soul, and thus everything must be respected, guarded and protected. It depends on our actions in what form we will be born again. If we act in a righteous way we might even be born again as a Brahmin, but if our actions are wicked, we might become an untouchable, or even a dog or a pig. Hence the respect for animals and the source of vegetarianism. You never know in what form your relatives and acquaintances have been born again. Vegetarianism is further strengthened by the respect for nature and her forces, and the thought that everything on earth and heaven might become a god. Several gods have animal forms. It is enough to think about the elephant-headed Ganesha, deity of luck or the future and last avatar of Vishnu, the horse- headed Kalki. The Hinduist hierarchy of creatures (with the god Brahma on the top and animals and plants on the bottom) explains the high tolerance of the Hindu towards fellow humans and the whole animal world, the refusal of violence, the great respect of nature and the aspiration to live in harmony with her.
The Afterlife of the Gandhian Idea: Craftsmanship versus Mass Production
The peaceful and tolerant view of life permeating the whole Hindu society raises the question that how was it possible to break colonial rule with such non-violent means? To answer this we must analyse the Hinduism-based guidance of Mahatma Gandhi with the aim to reach independence; these are still valid and applicable today to form a new kind of eco-conscious thought. Gandhi‟s ideas are reverberated in the thinking of such thinkers worrisome about global problems like members of the World Council of Sages (Bölcsek Világtanácsa) or Budapest Club; in statements of fighters against globalism; and what is of primary importance here, in the writings of one of the combative theorists of nature art, John K. Grande whose thoughts I have already cited above. The British colonising policy that had been expanded and developed by the beginning of the 19th century fundamentally reshaped the traditional hierarchy of the millenary society, radically dismantled the structure of economy within a hundred years, and its influence on culture had become more and more expressive. With materials transported to England and finished products imported to the Indian market craftsmanship had been ruined virtually: craftsmen and guilds had been vanished. Establishing the British educational system had brought with itself the spreading of new scientific achievements which modified social relations and religious life. Traditions and their practice got into danger. European culture had partly eliminated millenary values and traditions of India, and the image of the final decadence and vanishing of Indian culture had appeared. The charismatic leader of the independence movement realised this tendency just in time. For Gandhi the re-establishment of craftsmanship‟s priority over industrial production became a central question and a primary task. He was convinced that several of the most vital social and economical problems such as unemployment could be healed in this way: „Men go on ‟saving labour‟ till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all. I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not philanthropy to save labour, but greed.” (Kumar, 1984.) In Gandhi‟s opinion British rule was empowered by the ruining of the technical network of rural trades and crafts and thus providing monopoly to English industry. As a result, Indian society was forced into dependence from English policy. He thought that to break foreign rule the support of independent, self-sufficient ways of production is needed which would block migration and contribute to the integrity and operationality of small communities.
29. Pottery workshop, Partapur, India, 2008.
„Az önállóság technikája olyan tömegtermelést tesz majd lehetővé számunkra, amely az emberek saját otthonában folyik. Ez a technika nem fogja zsúfolt, egészségtelen gyárakba terelni az embereket, hanem az egyéni termelést fogja milliószámra megsokszorozni, és a társadalom valódi szükségleteit fogja kielégíteni.” (Kumar, 1984) The „technique of self- employment”, i.e. the preservation of craftsmanship‟s traditions is thus the token of the achievement of independence, the evidence of economical, political and cultural autonomy. The symbol of the movement: the spinning wheel is the emblem of the autonomous Indian economy and policy, and the symbol of independence. Gandhian thought stayed alive after obtaining independence; its influence is tangible in today‟s Indian society. This huge country virtually lives as a closed economy, producing nearly the whole of its needs, and with a hundred percent duty on most of the imported finished product. Decentralised economy, flourishing crafts culture supplying needs locally and using techniques that do not apply outside energy, and a relatively low rate of transportational and logistic difficulties – these are the characteristic features of the economy in today‟s India. For a European man it is rather curious to experience the lack of the well known attributes of global mass production. The result of the self-supporting arrangement is the low rate of influence of global economical processes which, in the light of the acute problems of the 21st century (environmental pollution, energy crisis, unhandable social problems), shows clearly the prophetic quality of Ghandi. The unconditional (religious) love of nature and the respect of craftsmanship (the production from local materials) are the features of an average Indian man‟s view of life based on Gandhian guidances. It is understandable that the now developing philosophy of nature art is close to Indian people, and it makes them open to receive all kinds of nature art events. About the state of a work of art in India the following citation seems to be valid: „Satish Kumar says that in India, art was never meant to hang on walls – it‟s part of life. He thinks that the desert of ugliness all around us is connected with concentrating our notion of beauty in a great body of works of art to be found only in the oases of museums. In India, art is not separated from the normal flow of life.” (Gablik, 1998.)
Sandarbh Artists Workshop
The above citation of Satish Kumar points out that art has always been an organic part of life in India. In recent past the situation has been changed by the establishment of the commercial gallery system. In the seventies Indian artists felt responsibility for the solutions of social and political problems, and, being permeated by the sixties‟ New Left ideologies, treated capitalism as the greatest enemy. Everything became suspicious that could have been connected to profit. For this generation it seemed to be a real possibility to create a linkage between art and life, theory and practice, creativity and productivity. The young art essayist living in New Delhi and editing the internet art magazine Artconcerns, Johny ML (2008. p. 38-40.) gives a sensitive report on the situation of those engaged artists who did not benefit from state support because of their political activities. To display them on the market was blocked by their radicalism and progressivity. These artists did not trouble themselves however, since they saw capitalism‟s terror in artwork business, too. They exhibit on the street or in community places instead of hotel‟s halls and private villas of collectors in order to directly communicate with their audience. By the end of the eighties however, it seemed that there is no longer sense in this kind of political engagement, and artists, driven by a kind of utopistic romanticism escaped to rural communities far away from urban settings. They were inspired by the common life with the community and their work was reinforced by the openness of reception. It lasted until they began to feel the symptoms of ghetto-logic in their own lives they reappeared in the galleries of cities. By that time, thanks to the economical boom of the nineties, there is a huge market of artwork business that launches Indian gallery industry.
30. Chemould Gallery, Mumbay, India, 2008
The great private galleries of London, Paris and New York began to appear in Mumbay, New Delhi, Calcutta; and Indian galleries began to reside in the gallery system of European cities. A good example is Aicon Gallery which opened branch offices in London and New York besides the Indian city Palo Alto. The main aim of these galleries is the introduction and distribution of works of the new generation; they wish to integrate contemporary Indian art into international circulation in the hope of greater demand and profit. This tendency resulted in the livening up of Indian art education: along with the well-known institutions (Academy of Fine Arts in Mumbay, Academy of Fine Arts and Literature in New Delhi, University of Baroda Fine Arts Faculty) several educational institutions of varying qualities have launched programs of visual instruction in recent years. Besides fame internationally acclaimed artists earn unimaginable amounts of money part of which they return to those institutions where they studied before. One of the most famous of these successful artists is 1972-born Chintan Upadhyay who donates most of his income from art business to the fund established by himself in his native town Partapur in Rajasthan. The fund is operated with the contribution of young artists from the neighbourhood. One of the purposes of the Sandarbh Artists Workshops27 is to organise such interactive events in this remote village that will be profitable both for the locals and for the artists. For foreigner and inlander artists arriving at the one- month-length artists‟ colony it is a natural expectation to involve local craftsmen, artisans in order to make use of their skills. During the collective work locals might have a glance at the alchemy of arts, and, in exchange, artists not only become familiar with tricks of the trade but with the thinking of local people, too. Here the artist has to become a member of the village community for a month; s/he has to give up her/his privileged situation and accept that her/his status is not an exception, s/he is not protected by the sanctifying aura of any institutional system. In other words, s/he has to accept that not the finished product is what matters; what matters is the changing of views of those partaking in the collective creative process, and the spiritual and material mastering of the whole environment. This „counter-art” gesture of the organiser-sponsor indeed works against the strengthening gallery industry and artwork-cult of which he is at the same time the animator and mover, and from which he gains much profit. It was perhaps his religiousness or the traditional-cultural background so characteristic of Rajasthan that helped him to realise the vanity of the continuous glittering in the limelight of international gallery industry. His gesture is comparable to that of Joseph Beuys who realised his project 7000 Oaks from the money earned from doing a Japanese whiskey ad. With a conspiratorial wink Chintan Upadhyay makes his profit from the art business of the „centre” and realises program on the „periphery” that is important for him. The program consists of the thematising and value- raising of local culture and the aspiration towards the elimination of the hierarchical order between centre and periphery. The authenticity of his activity is granted by the fact that he is familiar with both sides. He does not monopolise objects like representatives of primitivism, but rather introduces a more „humane” solution through the process of the collective work.
27 http://blvs.blogspot.com
Western lifestyle and way of production seem to be very desirable and obtainable aims for craftsmen of the small community since they never meet their problematic points. The collective thinking in the artists‟ colony generates the context in which they face the question what should they preserve from their traditional lifestyle and what are those surrogates of the radically different culture that they can borrow. The changing of the locals‟ reaction to the artists‟ colony (since 2002) supports the validity of the basic conception. After some years their resistance to participation and inferiority complex have been replaced by the self- confident knowledge and use of local materials and tools; today they present their valuable knowledge for co-operation without any scruples, and often they create artworks on their own.
30. The work of a Partapur craftsman
The influence is mutual; for artists cut out from urban settings and the solitude of the studio this special intellectual adventure is an enriching experience. In these fields automatism and routine are of no use. The basic situation requires a constant effort to keep a creative condition awake which should be reconciled with the creative force arriving from the community. Locals, however, are also urged to step out of their status quo. The regularly visiting artist Lochan Udapyay creates his works from recycled plastic garbage found in the village shedding light on the vital problem of environmental pollution. Udapyay‟s work was made of ropes woven from plastic bags of different size; later, using this idea, a village store started to sell such ropes, too. The recontextualising application of craftsmen‟s products is also a frequently used method in the inventory of Indian artists. Cut out from their original functional field these objects gain new significance, and thus their value becomes higher from the perspective of the maker. The Indian artist nicknamed Shidu RV used clay stoves made in a pottery for his site- specific work which implied at the family-integrating role of women in traditional communities.
31. Shidu RV‟s work in progress, Partapur, India, 2008
The collective creative process made it possible for the potter to comprehend the message encoded in the work; if he bears in mind this possible association in the future he might mediate it to his close relatives and friends, and with time it will spread around in the community. This six-year-old decoding technique is applied more and more confidently in the small community. By becoming familiar with the spiritual life of the community not only inlander artists but more-materialistic Westerners can gain novel experiences, too, which might be definitive for their future creative process. In the creation of ephemeral sacred buildings for religious occasion working process is more important than the created object itself. The product made of stones, branches, phloem, leaves and petals is not protected from decay; instead of prolonging its life they rather create a new one by another sacred act. The vanishing of objects thus gives life to a continuous creative act. Among other religious events the participants (one of them was I myself) of the 2008 Sandarbh Workshop had several occasions to get involved into three or four days long wedding rituals. These ritual „happenings” follow strict regulations; and they provided experiences beyond our European, pragmatically blessed imaginations.
32. Wedding, Gidwani, India, 2008
The positive effect of collective rituals on creativity, on communication in a community, on self-knowledge, and on the quality of life at all, is more than obvious. In this comparison it seems that Western societies based on industrial production and on the accumulation of material goods have deprived themselves once and for all from such collective dynamics. Probably the cultural shock drove me to use my own body as medium for my work in the artists‟ colony; to question my East European identity in a playful experiment of limiting my own co-ordinates. With the help a local professional henna-painter I clothed my white- skinned body (which suggests a certain identity in this context) with a mixture of coloured spices and sun oil that formed wedding motives. The completed drawing was burnt into my skin with a several ours long sunbathing; it burnt into it since after removing the paint the negative of the drawing remained on my skin. My body functioned as „a surface showing the codes of the visual language of identification” (Sturcz, .....,p. 50), while the motives on it documented the cathartic experience of encountering another culture.
33. Local henna-painter working, Partapur, India, 2008
Besides the henna-painter the main contributor in this work was nature herself as it was demonstrated by the painful, burnt skin. Pain implies ritual purification; but the dangerous manifestation of the life-giving sunlight suggests some ecological worries at the same time. The completed work was exhibited or presented in an unusual way. I made photo documentation of the work in all of the photo studios on the main street of the village, placed them in the shop windows which transformed the main street into an open exhibition for anyone to see.
34. Erőss István: Naptetoválás (Sun Tattoo), Partapur, 2008
The appropriateness of this „democratic” way of presentation was justified since after the pictures appeared in shop windows articles were published in regional newspapers; people greeted me on the streets; I received fruit juice for free in a store; and the local doctor asked me worrisome about my skin‟s condition. I concluded from these signs that my aspiration towards interactive communication had been realised; at some level I became a part of the life of the micro-community in which the henna-painter craftsman had rather an important role. My other work was realised with the active contribution of local craftsmen, too; I would call it a nature art performance if I was to categorise it. I sat on a pompous silvery throne known from wedding ceremonies which was set in the centre of a yard fit for animal keeping. A group skilled for building adobe houses built a chapel around me from cow manure. I borrowed these cow manure „bricks” from two families; the bricks are usually formed by children, and their function is to provide heat. It is not merely the cow that is sacred in India, but all of its five products: milk, curds, butter, urine (panychagavya) and manure, too. Besides its indispensable function in everyday life (cooking) manure is used for the cleaning of house surroundings, and, what is of more importance here, it could help in one‟s purification of sins. The day I spent in my one-person chapel was meant to be a purifying ritual; it was witnessed by several thousand village residents, adults and children. The sacredness of this performance using a (from a European point of view) profane, „unartistic” material, was self-evident in this context.
35. Erőss István: Manure Act, Partapur, 2008
The whole-day-long performance of penitence happened in the sanctuary done from a holy material by local experts. It represented not merely the desire to free myself from my sins but, due to the symbolism of white skin, a gesture of regret for Western man‟s past wrongs of colonisation.
36. Locals participating in Manure Act
By the end of our stay as a means of a finale we invited craftsmen, artisans who participated in the creative process, and village-chiefs. After the dinner we held a screening which showed our previous works, and they presented their products and inventious techniques. The meeting functioned as receptions after exhibition openings. But while in the West the well-dressed gallery-owners and their clients, in the heat of „big sell”, emotionally stunned by their aspirations of public appearance clink and say „cheers” to each other; then here in Partapur we experienced how the „ego” is unbended in the community by accepting its functional mechanisms, and is happy to give itself to collective action. The will to gain similar experiences was only discernable in the work of some East European artists: Bogdan and Wirold Chmielewski from Poland, Božidar Mandić from Yugoslavia, Alexandru Chira from Romania, and the members of the Slovenian Šempas Community who lived according to the rules of village communities for different reasons, until traditional communities existed at all in their region, and until the rural surroundings‟ role of mediating norms began to fade. The early and rapid development of industrialisation. the material-centred values, the belief in the omnipotence of consummation has deprived communities in the West from collective spiritual experiences; the fragmentedness of society, the solitude of the individual became more and more serious. This situation was not helped by the integrating vision connected to the mobile phone and the internet; on the contrary, the democratisation of access to knowledge and to channels of communication left us with millions of even more lonely users instead of cohesive groups. That is why I think it is advisable for a Western artist concerned with nature art to get familiar with other cultures in order to experience the cathartic feeling of this creative method. It is certain that Sandarbh Artists Workshop is unique among nature art events of the world. There is no published photo documentation yet of its seven years‟ long working; this lack proves the priority of the intimacy of the creative process over the finished product. A further evidence for the uniqueness of the conception is that an artist from Tanzania (whom I recommended for participation), after seeing what happens here, launched a similar nature art event at the foot of Kilimanjaro, in the town of Arusha.
TAIWAN
A Symbiosis with Nature – Chinese Universalism
The first written sources of Chinese history from 1550 BC, the era of the Sang-dynasty, tell us about a pantheistic world view, where (preserving the memory of ancient totemism) a huge number of gods (sen) and evil demons (kwei) surrounds the human being influencing her/his life, sometimes protecting, sometimes harming her/him. The systematisation of Chinese religion was carried out during the first centuries of the Chou-dynasty (1122-255 BC). According to this system each and every thing in the world has strong connections with each other, creating a balanced situation („the principle of universal harmony”). Each phenomenon could be traced back to two complementary elements harmonising with each other. The first of these is Yang, the active masculine principle of light, warmness, height; the other is Yin, the passive feminine principle of darkness, cold and depth. The universe is a great living organism constantly on the move whose participants mutually affect each other without end. The balance between Yang and Yin, the harmony between the heavenly and earthly terrains, order and law is secured by the Tao (the way). Tao, the central concept of the religious system, means both the way which leads to the end, and the order and law that operates everything. Conceptually Taoists do not support good against evil but believe in the mutual dependence of the poles of the binarity. If you define something as good, you automatically create something wrong, since it would make a concept nonsense if it had only one aspect. The eternal, unchanging Tao that regulates and sustains everything is the theoretical basis of the two great religious trends born in China in the 6th century BC: Taoism and Confucianism. K‟ung Fu-ce, i.e. Confucius preferred the inner peace of the soul to the richness in the world out there; he lived an exemplary ascetic life, and became the ideal of the Chinese later. In Confucianism Tao is the law, the tool of the heavens to preserve order in nature and in human life. Confucianism gives practical, objective and useful advices for the individual‟s activity among friends, in the society and in politics; with its optimistic vitality it promises the fulfilment of desires in this earthly life. Due to its pragmatic guidance and its advices promising solutions for state, collective and social problems it became a state religion in the first century AD. Taoism, on the other hand, provides solutions for the religious, mystical and philosophical problems of the individual. The doctrine of the philosopher Laozi (who lived in the sixth century BC) spread in oral tradition for a long time before it gained its written form. According to the written teachings (Daodejing) Tao is mystical natural power that reveals itself for the man using certain magical methods, who will be able then to rule nature, to understand the past and to see the future. The final goal is the meditative contemplation of eternity, a peace free from desires, an abstinence from earthly matters. One must give up individualistic desires and let himself to be guided by Tao. This is the perfect condition of non-acting, wu wei. Taoism interprets Tao as a natural law; the final goal of man is the self‟s absorption in nature to be a part of the unity. If you know the first mover that permeates everything, you know the world order, in one word, you know Tao, then you know yourself. The absorption in nature, the consciousness of the unity created an aspiration towards a symbiosis with nature at the time when the pantheistic world view appeared.
Feng-shui
Feng-shui is the part of Chinese Universalism. It shows possibilities to understand the world by the means of establishing a harmony between nature and human surroundings. The project of establishing harmony in the outer environment is at the same time and endeavour towards the inner balance, the perfection of man, since our actions in the material world are reflected in our inner worlds. There are two ways of conceiving the world. The first is the rational way that describes natural processes by physical models, in the language of mathematics or geometry. Feng-shui belongs to the other, intuitive way that is more characteristic of the East; it is a system of rules resting on millenary observations of nature that does not explain itself; and you cannot create a comprehensive theoretical model out of it due to lack rational explanation. This system of rules is based on Taoism, on the Yin and the Yang, on the harmony of the basic force moving the universe. Yin contains Yang, and Yang contains Yin. An important factor in the achievement of this harmony is chi, the life energy, the cosmic breath; the flow of chi, the optimal arrangement of the environment affects our behaviour, our relation to others, our health. The role of nature is fundamental in the achievement of this harmony since plants not merely symbolise life and growth, but create them by making the vitalising, nourishing chi flow. Our environment constantly tries to balance its continuously changing chi, and determines our strong connection to nature. Chi requires constant action that could be regarded a sacred activity or art. The continuous improvement of our environment, the establishment of our inner harmony is evidently more than monotonous everyday labour; not to mention the cathartic joy that we may induce in others with our work.
Chinese Garden
Chinese garden is three-dimensional work of art after all; it is a Chinese painting or wash-drawing with its specific symbolic meanings projected to space. The circle meant to symbolise heaven; the square is the earth; water and hills are happiness. There are some discernable calligraphic signs, too; they express the inner world of man, the eternal wisdom. The garden has a sacred function; a place of meditation, an escape from the noise of the world to a silent conversation with nature. Chinese garden shows different shapes in different ages; its shape wear the signs of the given age and the features of the social status. Feng-shui is naturally applied here, too. In some periods they built buildings and covered promenades with an overlook to an allegedly mystical land; it emphasised the importance of the gardener existence. The beauty of the garden lies in its details, though for the European eye, being less sensible to the richness of details, it may look poorish.
Chinese Wash-Drawing and Calligraphy
Landscape painting, calligraphy painted Indian ink and poetry were in strong union through thousands of years. Students of these genres were considered to do the most respectable activity; and the artist might have had a high social status, too. The difference between the Asian and European culture is detectable first of all in the method of leaving signs. European sign systems are dominated by structure and rational abstraction, while the Eastern ones are characteristic of a calligraphic nature, an emotional reductionism. Western typography searches for rule and order in the creation of many types of letters, while Eastern literacy builds a logical system from the individualistic, unrepeatable signs. The former one is a radical abstraction, while the latter is bound to visual reading of nuanced richness hardly conceivable for us. (Miklós, 1973.) Chinese ortography was polysyllabic in the beginning; with time it has been crystallised into its monosyllabic words and symbolic signs. Calligraphic simplicity and oure visuality is characteristic of the Chinese landscape picture, too. Shanshui – the Chinese expression means „mountain and water”. Landscape is defined by two constituents of the classical Chinese land. Mountain is the principle of tranquility, constancy, eternity, timelessness; while water refers to motion, change, to the passing moment in this opposition. The mountain skywards is the vertical, the water spreading on the ground or the brook is the horizontal element. All classical Chinese landscape picture is structured by the opposite principles of Yin and Yang; nature is not the object of description but a symbol – the phenomenon of the tao. True reality is the inconceivable tao which becomes sensible for the human being only when it is bound to form. The task of the form is to demonstrate, approximate, explain the inner content. Form is the vehicle of essence, and form should express essence in the most simple and figurative way avoiding mimetic description. Chinese landscape painters, the proclaimers of the tao, clothe the tao with pictures and forms. There are four stadiums of artistic creation in the East. First is stillness: the phase of deep meditation; it is followed by attention, when the artist is annihilated in the contemplation of nature. The third phase is over-excited condition which passes in a shorter or longer time; finally the outburst happens: the work is born. Three of this four phases fits the creative stadiums of a European artist, too, but the pantheistic trance of the contemplative annihilation in nature is an incomprehensible condition for the Western soul. This is the union of man and the eternal spirit of the universe, the cognition of the tao, the deepest secret of the Eastern religions without which we can never comprehend the essence of the Eastern art. What is problematic for us in the comprehension of Eastern iconography is this secret, the ability to see symbolically. „[...] What is the reason for the virtuous man‟s love for the landscape picture? Since the beauties of the land cherish the natural simplicity in him, he wishes to habit forever among these beauties; since the free play of fountains and rocks always pleasures him, since he meets fishermen, woodmen, all kinds of hermits who have forsaken the world; and since he always felt close to his heart the screaming of monkeys and the flying of cranes. [...] there are some landscapes in which we could travel, some open on a large panorama, in some we would take a walk, while there are some which we would gladly inhabit. [...] If someone has the idea of painting in one‟s mind, he should establish harmony between heaven and earth first. [...]” (Tőkei, 1997.) The above citation from the Chinese Guo Sit (1023-1085) unfolds the special relation of the Eastern man towards nature: you can reach transcendence through nature; nature and deity is one and the same. And it also hints at the unconditional respect towards traditional use of materials and symbols in recent traditional Eastern art.28 The status of the Eastern artist is also
28 Though modernity here does not mean the negation of the art of previous periods, but rather the widening of a cohesive tradition. different from what we are used to: they interpret their role in a private, and not in a public way, and they rarely label themselves as artists. The judgment and the social status of a landscape painting rises only if old masters allow it to do so. (Grande, 2004. p. 40-42.) A typical attempt at the comprehension of Eastern iconography is the writing of Béla Hamvas (2006): „Chinese wash-drawing has two constituents: first is the black line and spot, the second is the empty white space. During I tried to see the drawing in a European way, setting out from the black line and spot, and regarded white space as mere context, I understood nothing. I thought it was a description of some object, land, or scene. In one of my luckier moments I recognised that the two forces are not on equal rank. No. White is not context, not a passive space, not emptiness, nor nothing; it is not contingent. No and no. White shapes black more (the line, the spot) than vice versa. The formalising power is the white. The space, the nihil. The indefinable. The infinitesimal. For the European eye only the black line and spot exist. It sees only them. Regards only them as beings. It does not even recognise the space, the white, the nihil. That was the moment I understood Chinese wash- drawing. And I understood also that though white is »outside«, the white is the »context«, the »space« - in spite of this, virtually white is what is inside, this is content and person and time. This recognition depended on the way I looked: not from the perceivable black to the white, but from the indefinable white to the black. (»Subject is the place from where reality can be seen.«) I did not position myself in the thing, but in the formalising power, not in the object, but in the subject. Not in the real, but in the magical.”
37. Chinese wash-drawing from the nineteenth century In the rest of the writing Hamvas points out by drawing a parallel between modern painting and Chinese wash-drawing that the European viewer tends to recognise only lines and forms, and that „in this way perceive only the half of it, the outer half, surface.” His final thoughts: „If we could not comprehend that white emptiness affecting the inside from the outside is nothing else than the formalising power affecting the outside from the inside, we would never have an idea of the artistic reality.” Hamvas is eager to recognise that how far the two ways of thinking and the two system of codes are from each other, when we attempt to interpret artworks of these cultural circles.
In the name of joining Western culture the significance of Chinese wash-drawing and traditional forms of expression has diminished in recent decades. Nevertheless, they teach both Western and traditional art separately in secondary and tertiary education; I found this situation present in those institutions I visited during my stay in Mongolia, Japan, Taiwan, India and South Korea. In contrast, Western culture and educational system, focusing mainly on itself, at best touches the understanding of Eastern culture, which situation can be a disadvantage for us with time.
Nature Art Events on the Chinese-Speaking Territory
Significant nature art events on Chinese-speaking territories happen beyond the borders of the “People‟s China”. Though it seems that the high degree of environmental pollution in “Big China” should provoke reflexions, authority politics naturally obstacles such initiations, and artists are oriented towards the gallery business that have been launched in the nineties. They think they have a chance to provide a safe financial existence for themselves by reaching the world‟s large commercial galleries through this field. The few isolated events that have been realised since 2000 were initiated by foreigners and died soon due to lack of financial background. The most significant of these kind of events was an action by an American group of eco-artists: with local people and students involved they carried out actions in a seriously polluted river in the city of Cheng Du in 1995. In their presentation29 the members of the group, Beth Grossman, Christine Baeumler and Cheryl Wilgren Clyne reported about the vivid activity of locals that proved that people are not ignorant about their close surroundings. The attendance and participation of the community, however, raised the attention of the power (the police), too. They suspected that the action was politically motivated, and that suspicion greatly contributed to the diminishing of the initial enthusiasm of locals. Another single event
29 The presentation was held during the event “Naturkunst” in Licherode, Germany, 10 August 2007. happened in Quili Hai National Park, Tianjin province, in April 2008, and was organised by a European team of artists. The action carried out by Elise Gilmore, Madeleine Suidman and Lynn Glehen the activist motive of the eco-message was much more emphatic than aesthetical concerns, so it is worth mentioning mainly due to its attention-raising effect about the finiteness of natural resources. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, however, there are several, generally yearly held nature art events. Such are the open-air exhibition titled “Environmental Art – Sculpture & Installation Exhibition” in Hong Kong Botanical Garden, or the exhibition and symposium in Shihmen National Park, Hualien county, in the southern part of Taiwan where the material to use is driftwood. In Taipei the most famous events are ‟Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival‟ in Guandu National Park and “Juming International Art Camp” which treat mainly ecological problems with various thematic.
Juming International Art Camp
The international art camp is being organised by the private founded Juming Museum as a periodical program. The museum was founded and built by Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming; it is situated far away from the noise of the metropolis, on the hill of Chinshan north of Taipei. The founder was born in 1938, learnt traditional Chinese painting from master Lee Chin- Chuan from 1953 until 1957, then studied modern sculpture with the guidance of Yuyu Yang between 1968 and 1976, and now he is one of the most renowned sculptors of Taiwan. He held individual exhibitions of his large-sized bronze sculptures in the big cities of Europe and in New York besides Asia. Ju Ming applies the formative methods of modern sculpture in his grandiose, sometimes 6-8 meter high works, but he sets them according to the regulations of the Chinese garden and Feng-shui. Most of his large-sized works are set in the traditional “Chinese garden” context of the 20 acres large field of Juming Museum which was founded primarily for this cause.
38. The sculpture garden of Juming Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
By its contrast with the sterility of the closed exhibition spaces this sculpture garden is attractive in itself due to its natural conditions; the sculptures, furthermore, set according to the regulations of Feng-shui, and perfectly fitting their environments, testify the masterful synchronicity of the human made garden as the temple of nature. Besides the main building in the sculpture park there is another one for temporary exhibitions. On the occasion of the latter one‟s handing over on September 9, 2004, they organised the first international nature art event under the title “Embodying the Scenery of Ecology”. The trustees of the exhibition and art camp were two young artists who studied in Europe, Liu Po-Chun and Dr. Chen Chih- cheng. Both of them teach at the National Taiwan University of Arts, and participated severally in Hungarian and Transylvanian art camps and exhibitions, thus gaining a view of the region‟s art life. Thanks to this contact three of the six foreign invited artists of the 2004 event were from Eastern Europe. Poland was represented by Bogdan Achimescu, Romania by Gusztáv Ütő; from Hungary they invited me myself. From the Western part of Europe arrived the French Claude Leveque and Didier Marcel, and the English Ivan Smith. During the one- month-long art camp there was a discussion in the framework of a conference about the emphatic presence of ecological considerations; besides the mentioned trustees a Taiwanese art historian Lin Mun-Lee, and two French trustees, Michel Nuridsany and Jacques Bayle held presentations. In my view (in which my personal concerns have a part) the most exciting presentation was held by Liu Po-Chun. The artist-teacher presented his opinion that, in the light of the East European events known by him (he mentioned the art camps AnnArt organised by Gusztáv Ütő and Túlsó Part organised by myself), the use of natural materials are much more confident in the Eastern part than in the Western part of Europe. The reasons for this, according to him, are, on one hand, the strong “natural alliance” experienced by him in East European people, and, on the other hand, the fact that the artistic trends of varying rapidity did not lead artists of the East European region to frequent technical and conceptual turns. I think this opinion is competent because of the impartiality of the presenter; though it is true the general discourse around nature art is all about well-known Western artists almost without exception. What explains this situation is, besides the modest ability of East European artists to enforce their interests, the wide-spread attitude of critics which predominately presents the well-established Western names and events to avoid the risk of mapping events in one‟s own surroundings. While designing our works we were unable to resist the atmosphere of the land which is so similar to that of a Chinese wash-drawing; the character of the work in progress could have been sharp only to a degree where it can still fit its unity with the land. The Taiwanese artists evidently showed their skills that are relevant in this context. In Chen Chih-cheng‟s work the land was such background that emphasised the work and gave additional significance to it; while Liu Po-Chun, in an inverse way, framed a piece of land in order to integrate the “background” behind it.
39. Chen Chih-Cheng: Glass House, 2004
. In both cases the works were means for the viewer to contemplate and to become absorbed in nature, to find her/his own inner peace. Chen Chih-cheng‟s mirror-walled cottage reflects the circularly growing nature; they almost dissolve each other, but the geometric strictness of the object hints at the careful intervention of the humane hand. In the catalogue of the exhibition the artist writes about his own work that he tried to imply that all human- made objects should mirror the laws of nature, the alliance of existence between man and nature. Liu Po-Chun gave the leading role to nature in his scenery; it urges the viewer to meditate and become immersed in it. Everyone was glad to take part in this sacred game in which even a European man like me could have an idea about nature‟s healing power leading to inner peace. In comparison with similar events, the unique place, the fame of the museum, the perhaps too much technical assistance, the secure financial background and the professionally organised media presence gave an “aristocratic” character to the program.
Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival
Guandu Nature Park is a more than ten acre large, predominantly swampy reserve, in which there is an established park with a building fit for exhibition in its centre. Though the park is not far from Juming Museum, the two scenes differs strongly both in their conceptions and in their organisational methods. The board of directors gave a commission to the American-born trustee living in Japan, Jane Ingram Allen30 to choose the artists for the annual festival who, in contrast with the practice of invitations of Juming Museum, announced an international tender. 165 valid plans arrived for the tender of the festival of 2008; the international jury chose six foreigners and two inlanders31. Important points of the tender were the prescriptions for use of material, theme, and setting of the work. Decisive aspects in the judgment were that the work should be made basically from local materials, it should react to environmental problems, and it should be planned in a way that it incorporates the natural location as constitutive part of itself. After the process of decision the list of invited artists was the following: Aihua Hsia, Taiwan; Donald Buglass, New Zealand; Firmal Djamil, Indonesia; Roger Tribon, Philippines; François Frechet, France; Karou Motomiya, Japan; Chung-Ho Cheng and Chia-Ping Lu, Taiwan; and finally I myself from Hungary. The amount of money we gain to design our works was insignificant in comparison
30 Jane Ingram Allen was born in Alabama, studied in Florida, then moved to New York. Recently she lives in Taichung, Taiwan, working as a sculptor and trustee. 31 See 2008 Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival catalogue p. 5. with that of the Juming program, and, in addition, we had to “produce” the material necessary for the works and transport it to the scene. Naturally, the idea to ruin the allegedly exceptional status of the artist was part of the concept, which was further strengthened by the involvement of volunteers. The volunteering assistants were not merely observers of the work in progress, but active participants of it, and they might feel themselves as co-artists. The atmosphere of the working process was rather intimate with collective dinners and long conversations. Taiwan is known for its prosperity and for its devotion to modern technology, however, in some highland villages there are some traditional communities where religion has a central role in everyday life. I was surprised to experience in the case of our assistants, who were young university students born in crowded metropolises, that post-material values: spirituality, creativity, engagement to nature are how important for them; and that how critical they are with the opposing material values. The daily eight or ten hour long volunteer work gained its true significance in the light of this experience. Invited artists gave presentations about their oeuvres. I will pick two artists who live and work in the archipelago of the Far East. Firman Djamil lives his life as a member of a small community on the island of Sulawesi, in the Toraja Mamasa region of Indonesia. Roger Tibon lives in a village near the town of Baguio on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. It is important to mention that none of them received art education, but learned traditional craftsmanship and the treatment of natural materials from the elders of the village. That‟s how they managed to get invitations to ranked international nature art events. By relying on his experiences and contacts from Australia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Singapore Roger Tibon himself has created a group in his own village which organises symposiums for local adults and children, and receives foreign artists for resident programs. Firman Djamil makes use of his international experiences in his politically motivated performances, furthermore, he is an active initiator of the more or less successful political movements organised for the protection of tropical forests. His presentation reported that thanks to the authority he gained in his village due to his travels around the world he can easily mobilise his fellow villagers and thus give a hard time for corrupt politicians and woodcutter companies. The organisational activities of these artists, on one hand, point out the already discussed change of the artist‟s social role (remember Alan Sonfist and other eco-artists). On the other hand, however, their works stress the claim of small communities to decentralise those decisions that would concern their own surroundings. This claim is supported by the fact that small communities know the best their own bio- regions, their reserves, and, as the above example shows, they are able to protect them. The works of these two artists made in Guandu Park hint at high level experience of craftsmanship. They use those tricks of the trade that are useful in everyday life: while producing articles for personal use, or while building dwelling houses.
40. Firman Djamil: Zero Chimney, 2008
It provides a kind of essential feeling of freedom to see craftsmanship moving into the focus of “high art”, to see everyday life becoming a part of art. The works of these two artists give a rather small field of association to those unfamiliar with their culture, and it is evident that they see the world through a religious and cultural filter that is entirely different from the Western approach. It was interesting to compare their works to my own which was mad from basically similar material and in similar size. It is a three and a half metres high cube framing a neatly fitting sphere.
41. István Erőss: Sphere, Guandu Park, Taipei, Taiwan, 2008
The work provides perhaps more metaphoric layers and possible associations for the Eastern viewer than what I intended initially, namely the opposition of dynamic and static. In the symbolism of Feng-shui the circle is the spiritual world, totality, perfection, a close contact with god, while square symbolises the material, earthly world. As it turned out during conversations, the jointing of the two forms was interpreted as the unity of sacred and the profane sphere. In the exhibition‟s catalogue John K. Grande writes about rationality and arrogance as possible associative points regarding my work. 32 To go further, square could signify the rational Western culture (as Grande himself implies), while the sphere might hint at the Eastern culture with its spiritual preferences. This argument might urge the viewer to see a colonialist aspect in my work, though it was not in my intention to have one. Besides the careful analysis of the works33 we can find a fascinating piece of writing by the above-
32 Ibid.p. 40–41. See more in the appendix. 33 See more in the appendix. mentioned critic titled „A Fragile Balance‟. It is about the role of Guandu Outdoor Sculpture Festival and the significance of ephemeral site-specific works34. The participation on this event gave me an insight into the typical Confucian way of thinking that could balance between tradition and modernity, and that could lead both to the possibility of unbelievable economical development and to the obligation to care about nature.
34 Ibid. p. 10–11. JAPAN
Buddhist Philosophy of Nature
Buddhism was born in ancient India and became an export product conquering both the Far East and Central Asia. Though nowadays it has lost its significant role in its native home, it has become all the more important in the religious life of China, Korea, Japan and Mongolia. Legend tells that the founder of the religion, Gautama Siddhartha attained Enlightenment in India: he gained insight into the nature of suffering and finitude, and formulated the principles of a novel religious-philosophical system, Buddhism. It must had a great part in the rapid spread of Buddhist doctrines that they promised (in contrast with the caste system and with Brahmanism that gave it legitimisation) a way out from the eternal cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth; Buddhism promised salvation, redemption and a solid moral basis in this earthly life. Buddha‟s teachings stem from the recognition that the phenomena of our world are all transient. The phenomena existing in the everlasting cycle of birth and death are constantly changing. Man and his world are constituted by independent constituents building up a combination of corporeal objects, sensations, perceptions, conceptions, instincts and conscious actions which are all open to be influenced by this constant cycle of change. The temporary relations create new, individual phenomena; later these dissolve into their constituents which again create new, different relations. (Glasenapp, 1993.) Buddhism is primarily an ethical-philosophical system besides its metaphysical teachings. It is a religion without gods, without mythology. Thanks to its openness it incorporated into itself the system of beliefs of natural religions creating a specifically local mythology and ritual. Buddhism appeared in China in 50BC; then through the mediation of Chinese and Korean monks it reached Japan in the middle of the sixth century where it spread quickly due to the encouragement it gained from the emperor‟s court. In its early stage it was less the spiritual essence or the philosophy of Buddhism which became important on the island, but rather its formal parts. The sophisticated ritual it gained with the incorporation of Chinese and Korean local spiritual ideas and habits, and the architecture of the monumental temples and pagodas made a huge impression on the Japanese. (Kasahara, 2001. p. 47-49.) In the development of Buddhism as an ethical-philosophical system the ethical attitude towards nature played an important role since the beginning. Teachings about the environment constituted a part of system of moral behaviour that looked for the elimination of suffering in a high level of morality. This morality, permeating all intentions and actions, would lead to the respect and complete acceptation of nature where the primary goal of man would be to decrease the sufferings and unconditionally accept the claims of all living being and natural formation. I would like to stress two points in the teachings about nature. According to Buddhism, humanity can use natural resources in an economical way only after learning natural laws perfectly. The other teaching says that you can only perceive your inner peace and tranquillity through the mediation of nature. Nature is the only suitable place for meditation and solitude; it also explains why most Buddhist temples are constructed in pleasant natural surroundings, thus creating the sacred space in a “unity with nature”. Though it would seem extraordinary at first thought, but in the East it is the least surprising that monks deserting to the forests chose caves for their habitation in order not to disturb the life of bugs, insects and plants. There is an aesthetical approach of the Buddhist philosophy of nature. The higher your moral level is, the more you appreciate and wonder the beauties of your environment. The more you are capable to look into the mirror of nature and feel the equality and unity with her without the greed of possession. The intimate contact with nature manifests itself in your relationships with human beings and animals and radically transforms their character. In Buddha‟s teaching suffering is an important constituent of the human existence. The reasons for suffering are greedy desire, the pursuing of pleasures, the overdriven desire of possession, or the negative anger which presents itself in our destructive, violent behaviour towards each other or our environment. The everlasting cycle of the desire for possession, the immeasurable consummation and the oncoming satisfaction plays the central role in the destruction of our ecological system. A shift of paradigm would be necessary; the moderate middle way of renouncement. The only escape from the current critical situation is an ethical behaviour based on a high level of consciousness which is favourable for Buddhism, too. It is a sign of the flexibility of Buddhism and its ability of renewal that it gives answers and practical guidance for actual environmental problems (Jankovich, 1999.). As it turns out from the volume titled “Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy of Nature” (Pap, 2004.), the authoritative Buddhist thinkers of our days (the Dalai Lama for instance) reveal the reasons for ecological problems, and provide answers and examples for the first proper steps. They all agree that it is not enough and not even necessary to condemn science, industry, advertisements, business life or politics for the environmental crisis. The main reason is humane greed and egoism; and reasons may only be eliminated through self-analysis, study and meditation in order to attain a tendency to be self-balanced, simple and empathic. Ignorance is a casual companion of life; it shades our minds like clouds cover the sun. Our short-sightedness is best proven by our tendency to meditate on the ways of filtering the smoke of factory chimneys, while we should have the aim of eliminating the real cause of air pollution instead, and chasten our desires. Ch‟an is a school of Buddhism originally born in China, but it has later (in the 12th century BC) been transported by monks into Japan where it has become widespread under the name Zen. The main teaching was the necessity of meditation which was well-received especially among the members of the Kamakura fighters caste, among samurais who used the methods of Zen to perfect concentration. Zen is not theory but practice. It is not depended on Buddhist scriptures but exclusively on the personal experience of the Zen master. The essence of Zen is mere meditation without any ceremonies. Though knowledge arrives spontaneously on its own, and not from an outer source, the novice would only attain it if s/he submits her- /himself to the guidance of a master of great knowledge. Following the path of Zen- meditation or Zazen the Zen-novice may attain the experience of seeing all in one unity in a single intuitive glance which carries with it the feeling of great freedom and peace. This is satori, or enlightenment. Most of the time it arrives like a shock or like an unexpected surprise. It is useful to take a look at the philosophy of Zen since it had a great influence on the arts: on poetry, drama, ceramics, calligraphy, and painting – not only in Japan, but in Korea, too, where it has already been known before its Japanese career as Sŏn. Furthermore, Zen provided the rank of art for gardening, flower arrangement (ikebana), archery, fencing, combat sports, and tea ceremonies. With its simplicity the philosophy of Zen teaches us how to get rid of status symbols and needless consumer goods, and instead we should concentrate on feelings and sensations. In Zen body and spirit, space and light, man and nature join each other. Its main aim is to make free our space from every objects that would lead our attention away from ourselves. It explains why Japanese rooms seem so puritan, clear and tranquil at the same time. The purity of spaces, and the relative lack of personal objects can be explained by the claim to hide social and financial status. This tradition of chastity is so deeply rooted in Japanese society that it is a great honour and a rare occasion to get inside a Japanese flat. The places for social life and hospitality are rather restaurants and tea-houses. This gives a striking contrast with the culture of the West where we do everything to demonstrate our richness and our taste that is not always that sophisticated. Sometimes even our buildings are symbols of our own taste and power; monuments of our own greatness or stupidity. This holds valid for much of the fine arts of the West: a lot of artists try to raise attention (at least for fifteen minutes) with aimless sensationalism, brutal or bombastic representation, hoping that their names will remain in the memories of viewers for a few days, or at best they will be registered in the notebooks of some critics or trustees.
Shinto
“Japan‟s national religion. The most ancient religion of the Japanese was constituted by the veneration of family guardian spirits, guardian gods, and the spirits of the ancestors and nature, which was interwoven with magical and fetish-using habits.” (Gecse, 1975, p. 28.). It is an initially anonymous, aboriginal national religion which was named in the sixth century BC in order to differentiate it from Buddhism. Its key concept is covered by the word kami which is usually means “spiritual essence”, and commonly translated as “god” or “spirit”. All that which earns a religious veneration contains a kami: the sky, the earth, the hill, the river, the plants and nature herself. The religion was simply the adoration of natural forces in the first place. Unlike Buddhism, it has no formulated doctrines, moral regulations, church organisation – it has merely mythology and a cultic system of habits. The result of this difference was that the ancient Shinto religion borrowed many things from Buddhism. This was an advantage and a danger at the same time. The spread of Buddhism soon lead to the fading of Shinto. The two religions overlapped each other in such a degree that according to the movement Riobu-shinto (Double-face) Japanese kamis are virtually identifiable with the divine Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of different names (Kasahara, 2001. p. 306-9). A tiny telling sign proves the practice of this double-faith: when the visitor is about to enter one of the most significant Buddhist places of pilgrimage, the temple of Nikko, then he must pass through a Shinto gate, a torii to start his way up to the mystical hill. The gate itself is a means of purification, and as we pass through it, we might feel that we entered the realm of transcendence.
42. Nikko, a Buddhist place of pilgrimage, Japan Besides the exceptional mystical experience the extraordinary encounter with Nikko may help us to understand the iconography of Eastern wash-drawings and landscape pictures. The legendary, unconditional obedience to the emperor, chief or employer could be traced back to Shinto faith, which obedience greatly contributed to the realisation of the Japanese economical miracle in an indirect way. This happened during the life of the so-called “we” generation; a generation whose experience of the lost war, and its sense of community mobilised huge energies. This consciousness and these energies have begun to fade in recent young generations of big cities (they are called “I” generation in common language) for whom their individual, psychological and existential problems are decisive instead of the key words of Shinto such as perseverance, fighting spirit or enthusiasm. This shift of approach was tangible in the Japanese exhibition of Ludwig Museum, Budapest in 200435. The main question was centred on the chances of surviving in urban settings. A critical approach was formulated about the spread of sub-cultures, Western fashion and pop culture symbolised by Manga, which all lead to the diminution of traditions. It seems that the great challenge for this urban generation in the near future will be the task of harmonising traditions with their altered lifestyles (just like their parents and grandparents did). As we have seen, the Japanese spirit is traditionally capable to accept duality, but in this case it is the negating of traditions exactly what hinders the reception of the dichotomy.
35 Kokoro no Arika – Where the Spirit Lives. Japanese Contemporary Art. Ludwig Múzeum Budapest – Kortárs Művészeti Múzeum, December 18 2003 – February 8 2004. The Japanese Aesthetic: Wabi-sabi
The ground of the Japanese aesthetical approach is that in nature nothing is perfect; we can nonetheless have the feeling of perfection when perceiving them, so artificial objects may attain beauty only if they are like phenomena of nature. Wabi means natural, irregular, imperfect, unworked, sometimes rough, poorish, but strong at the same time. Sabi means beauty ripened by time, old stones of buildings, tale-telling scratches on wooden furniture, the patina of objects made of bronze. The colour of wabi-sabi objects is dim, moderate; their materials are natural; their appearance is rustic devoid of any ostentation and showing-off. It is almost tangible, though, that they were made with great care and empathy; that these objects “have soul”. These objects reflect on the nature of human life by their allusions to finitude, imperfection, incompleteness. Wabi-sabi objects share the signs of “primitive art”: simplicity, roughness, coarseness; but, in contrast with it, they are never figurative or symbolic. As islanders the Japanese were always dependent on nature who caused them many sufferings, and taught them many things. The frequent hardships of nature and wars, especially poverty urged them to esteem and preserve their few personal articles. Wabi-sabi first appeared in the making of personal articles, and with time it permeated all branches of Japanese art and everyday thought.
43. A Japanese vessel of wabi-sabi philosophy
Wabi-sabi objects do not intend to be in the centre; their character is intentionally moderate, “quiet”. Their simplicity recalls an intelligent, reticent, and warm-hearted man, whose presence is not disturbing, and whose absence is painfully felt. These objects are not showing-off; still, we might feel a longing to look on them again and again (Varsányi, 2006). The most prominent field of wabi-sabi is ceramics and pottery which are virtually unchanged since hundreds of years. The secret of this unchangingness lays in Japanese tea ceremony whose aesthetics and ritual developed in the sixteenth century. An indispensable phase of the tea ceremony is the admiration of the form of the pot, the figures of the enamel surface; it helps the participant of the ceremony to control thoughts, to attain a depth and a quality of introversion. In traditional Japanese tea-houses you will never found two identical teacups until this day. Participants of tea ceremonies have used these objects filled with the spirit of Zen for centuries as implements of their spiritual life; these objects are more than mere personal articles: they can be regarded as proofs of the spiritual life of Japanese man. The techniques of producing ceramics have remained virtually unchanged for five hundred years; except for slight modifications of the constituents of the gaze. The traditional burning process remained the same. The burning process is not wholly controllable and in some degree contingent which gives individual character to the objects. Individuality is formed following the master‟s intention; if some objects fail to meet the strict requirements, then the master simply breaks them on the ground to give them back to mother earth where they have come from. Quantitative productions, “big sale” do not matter here; they are features of mass production. Though wabi-sabi is the joy of possession, it teaches independence from things at the same time since material poverty is the source of spiritual richness. While success, status and richness hinder the untroubled joy of life. The disciples inherit their skills from their master in long practice rather than in verbal form. During this process the disciple learns tricks of the trade, understands and acquires the work-attitude of the master, and his relationship to objects, his approach of life. Such a deliverance of knowledge is not unknown for the West since until the beginning of the late century masters trained their disciples similarly. With the difference that they laid less stress on the spiritual aspect of the process. In the Eastern part of Europe where serial production spread later the institution of the master and the folk culture of craftsmanship endured longer. Consequently, in Eastern Europe the shared aesthetical code system of the products done by a master living in a town, and of an object of folk art is the part of the collective memory. It explains why I think that for an East European it is easier to understand the aesthetics of wabi- sabi than for a citizen of a country which has an industrial development reaching far back in time. The self-evident question of how to reconcile industrial development with the millenary Japanese tradition including wabi-sabi seems to be insolvable only for the Western man who describes the world with formula of “either/or”: “either this, or that”, “either good, or bad”; who is convinced that the modern, the up-to-date, the high-tech is ever better than traditional, simple, manual. Having this obsessive duality in mind also means that you have categorical statements, differentiation, and concurrence, which are constant sources of problems in social, as well as in private life. Whereas Zen Buddhism teaches that in order to attain harmony you must get over this duality, and reach the world of unity. Unity does not mean “the same”, however, since each “single one” is unique on its own, it has its own beauty and is incomparable to anything else. This mentality manifests itself when you see a religious procession in the shade of skyscrapers in Tokyo; or a bank manager who, dressed in a kimono, guides a tea ceremony in his free time; or a Prime Minister who has taken up pottery in his retirement36. In our region the Carpathian dance house movement recalls this unity that is so unimaginable in the thought of the Western man.
Japanese Garden
In Japan, garden-making is a high art, and its roots can be found in Zen Buddhism and in the ancient Shinto religion as well.37 There are two types of gardens according to their functions. One of them is tea garden, Chaniwa, which provides a peaceful environment for ceremonies, and where nature‟s wildness and irregularity prevails and surrounds the simple thatched roof hut where the ceremony takes place. The other is Kare-sansui, or stone garden, a place for meditation, a manifestation of the credo of Zen Buddhism. By analysing the arrangement of a garden we might decode the creator‟s message just like in the case of an artwork‟s composition. The gardens are bare, decorated only by a few little rocks and lakes in the sand; in order not to divert our attention from ourselves, from our thoughts in the course of the meditation. There are no plants in this type of gardens, except for the moss appearing on some rocks. During the contemplation of the garden our unconscious helps to launch those fine associations between the rocks and flattened, raked sand (the sand stands for the ocean, while the rocks are the islands of Japan). From our perspective the so-called “landscape garden”,
36 Morihiro Hosokawa still works as a potter after his 1999 retirement from politics. 37 http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2099.html Tsukiyama, is more important, which is frequently labelled as borrowed land, too. Originally these were fenced territories for Shinto ceremonies, and were treated as sacred places. While designing such gardens man would not shape nature according to his own needs, but vice versa: paths, buildings made by man will fit into the surrounding plants and land. They intervene insofar as it is enough for stressing the unity of the garden with the land and panorama behind it. The point is to make the garden “frame” the picture of the hills in the background, or, from the other perspective, to “underline” the garden with the landscape behind. The aim is to stress the harmony of the minimally arranged part of nature with the “borrowed” piece of untouched land. The point is not to praise the creative potential of man, but to show the greatness of nature and her hidden aesthetic potential, which is reverberated in the approach of nature art.
Nature Art in Japan. Institutions, Events
Since the number of institutions representing contemporary art is relatively small in the view of the population and economic wealth in Japan, the significant part of contemporary art life takes place in small private galleries. The few institutions that have been built in the last decades are focused mainly on twentieth century art, and only some of them exhibits contemporary art. These are Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Hara Museum, National Museum of Art in Kyoto, and, in smaller towns, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nag, South-Japan, and the Contemporary Art Centre in Aomor which has opened its doors in 2001. There are rare occasions for Japanese contemporary artists to present their works, and they have to pay a large sum for hiring small galleries. The reason for this situation is that the price of the pictures is based on the rank of the galleries, so to put it in another way, they have to pay for the packaging. Though the system do not seem very appealing at first sight, if we look deeper we might see that it is more advantageous for the artists than the Western one, since here the gallery owner has much less power to influence art life. The lack of economically biased expectations in a way provides much more possibility for artists, especially for those who seek with great energies to build bridges between spiritual traditions and Western culture. These aspirations for a synthesis raise question like the one concerning artistic authenticity. Zsolt Petrányi remarks in connection with the Japanese exhibition in Budapest titled “Invisible Nature”: “What should the artist do to create a real picture in the Wittgensteinian sense? Should s/he describe the spirit of the age as commercially oriented, materialistically centred, and media-overwhelmed, or rather turn her/his back to these phenomena in order to revivify a feeling, a relation almost lost in oblivion, which is bound to the more and more distant nature and tradition? Naturally, there is not categorical answer to this question: both ways could be authentic; authenticity lays in the modus operandi, the method of realisation.” 38 (1994, p. 55.) Contemporary Japanese art shows a great variety in the solutions between the extremes of this alternative. The artists who foreground the modern, Western-compatible form of artistic language, find their way in the environs of galleries. Those artists, on the other hand, who prefer tradition and Buddhist-Shintoist orientation on nature, see t)heir possibilities of self-expression far away from Tokyo, from the realm of galleries, on nature art events. Japanese art have always been characteristic for its respect for nature, and in the nineties, influenced by land art and Western nature art events, a number of “up-to-date” events have been born whose spirit was rooted in the Buddhist-Shinto fundaments and which sought contact with similar events in the West. Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale is the most famous one of these; it is held in highland region every three years (in 2000, 2003 and 2006), and it has earned its fame. The high budget event takes place in a valley of nine, almost extinguished villages, on 760 square metres; its aim is to realise an internationally acclaimed art event with the involvement of locals that could mobilise masses in order to provide income for local people and possibilities of cooperation for artists. There are no strict thematic requirements; the picturesque natural environment determines the direction of the creative process. A lot of ephemeral works have been done whose fate would be defined by nature; and there are some works (among the nearly two hundred creations) that have been designed in deserted houses and constituted by the attributes of the traditional lifestyle of the recent past.
38 Láthatatlan természet [Invisible Nature], Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest, December 2 1993 – February 28 1994.
44. Yasuyoshi Sugiura. Wind Screen, Matsudai village, Japan, 2006
The triennale provides fair working conditions and a respectable honorarium for the invited artists; they managed to invite such names as Christian Boltanski and Ilya Kabakov, whose presence attracts audience and artists and experts from the international scene, too, as it is shown by the huge over-application for the tender. Though the design of the works usually takes 3 to 6 months, preparations and the permanently arriving visitors make this death- sentenced land alive. There are some other nature art events in Japan, usually with lower budgets, but with annual presence. Such are Hiki International Open Air Expressions, or Yokohama International Open Air Exhibition, where the time for design is only 2 to 3 weeks, and the exhibition could be visited for a month.
Abiko Open Air Exhibition
The one-month-long event takes place annually since 1998 in the town of Abiko, a one hour drive from Tokyo, with the participation of 15-20 artists. Aijima Art Centre is a complex of manor-houses offered by the Inoue family for artistic use: the rural surroundings shelter this nature art event. The initiators are artists living in the region: Egami Hiroshi, Takashi Ikezawa and Shirakawa Masahiro. In the beginning they organised exhibitions in the spacious rooms and yards of the several hundred years old building-complex.
45. One of the exhibition rooms of Aijima Art Centre, Abiko, Japan
In these rooms there is a mysterious atmosphere and hidden beauty hardly perceivable for the European man, since it would never reveal itself completely, but creates a perfect harmony under the surface. The Japanese word for this encoded aesthetical inventory is “Jugen”; its method is to deliberately leave empty traces on the surface of objects and buildings for the viewer to fill in. The pure forms and archaic atmosphere characteristic of the exhibition rooms of Aijima Art Centre gently prompts the visitor to turn towards nature. Moreover, it is rather difficult to organise an exhibition with a stronger presence than the place itself. Organisers thus expanded their activity on the surrounding forests, lakes and rivers; their decision was confessedly influenced by the Japanese people‟s relationship to closed rooms. Japanese tend to regard close spaces as places for the ego‟s self-expression, and consequently it is difficult to attract them into exhibition, while they are eager to go out into nature any time to receive artworks. The core of Abiko Open Air Exhibition is the Art Centre itself where screenings, receptions, presentations take place, while the creation proceeds in the nearby bamboo forests, on sites previously chosen, from materials found on spot. The hardships caused by the relatively low budget are eased by the helpfulness of the community of the near town. I participated on the event in 2002; at that time a well-to-do entrepreneur offered a house for the artists to stay in during the program. Breakfast and dinner were cooked by enthusiastic pensioners and volunteers from home material. It was most fascinating for the three foreigner participants, since we had a chance to take a glance at the secrets of the mysterious Japanese cuisine which is a rare occasion for a European man. The several volunteering assistants helped us by explaining and showing with great patience how to use craftily bamboo, a material largely unknown for us until then. The direct perception of tea ceremonies, collective bathing rituals, and of the Japanese way of thinking at all, prompted me to completely change my initial working plan, and let myself be directed by local impulses. It became clear for me, that, in contrast with the loud and overwhelming way of expressions of my previous, large- sized and shocking works, here I should take a more moderate role. I should be a mediator whose creation helps nature in the strictest sense to voice herself. Buddhism teaches that the music nature creates is very pleasant, since it is without composition, and thus would not grip and enclose the listener. This idea must have motivated me, too, when, after being in a grip for a long time myself, I finally decided to create a swimming musical instrument, 3x3x3 metres in its size, built from one hundred organ pipes, and played by the wind of changing strength with the help of stones hung inside and between the pipes.
46. István Erőss: Music for Mosquitoes, Abiko, Japan, 2002
I lumbered the material from the nearby forest, and selected each piece of wood according to its sound. I set the instrument on a lake inside a crater-like hill in order to let the surrounding hillside transmit the sound to the top, creating in this way a “natural auditorium”. Though the work was created from local materials and in a state of being influenced by the genius loci, I managed to steal some Hungarian flavour in, and left the trace of my identity on it: the clove-like jointing of the cube that gives the frame of the construction, and the ratio of the floating part and the edge of the cube recall solutions and proportions used in Transylvanian folk architecture. Owing to the confirmed diplomacy of Eastern mentality I did not succeed to gain substantive information about the reception of my work after the opening ceremony. I conclude that it was judged positively from the fact that the flyer and the poster of the forthcoming year‟s exhibition were decorated by this work.
47. István Erőss: Music for Mosquitoes, Abiko, Japan, 2002
I envied the self-confidence of Japanese artists during the creative process which was in constant uncertainty. Their attitude seems to be a ritual that builds a bridge between the physical and metaphysical realms of our world. These artist approached nature with sincere respect in accordance with the philosophy of Buddhism and Shinto that conceives the universe as the united manifestation of matter and spirit. For them nature and deity is the same. In the works of older generation artists you could not discern even signs of aesthetical narcissism. Shimada Tadayuki cleaned the bamboo trunks of whole forest section with water from a nearby river, and thus “strengthened” the green of raw bamboo on the almost half-acre territory, but left the already fallen trunks untouched. Human intervention was felt only indirectly; “altering” intervention did not happen; it has merely stressed an already existing characteristic feature of nature. The artist then placed red-coloured, dipped sheets of paper on the dead trunks, with varying intensity, carefully following a rhythm and harmony. The work was a sensitively structured and carefully designed “three-dimensional haiku”, “a stone thrown into the still water of thinking”. The comparison of these two works evidently shows those cultural differences that shapes our relationships to nature and to the artwork. In my case the power over matter, the demonstration of the “homo faber” attitude, and finally the packing of the idea were the primary aspects; while in the case of the Japanese artist the artwork was manifested in a sensitive sign-leaving and an impulse for the waves of thinking to move; he left more empty trace for the viewer to fill in. In the foreword of the exhibition‟s catalogue critic Takeshi Kanazawa writes that in contrast with the Western man Japanese could never be indifferent to nature since the latter‟s “gods inhabit all the trees and all the weeds” 39. It explains the Japanese respect and humility felt towards her. It is honourable that in the shade of the large metropolis such an annual series of events can take place, and that the initiating artists managed to engage the whole community into the creative process, knowing that collective action helps to preserve the cohesion of the group.
39 see 5th Abiko Open Air Exhibition 2002 catalogue p. 3. SOUTH KOREA
Contemporary Art Scene – A Deliberate Catching Up
The history of South Korea is closely tied to the histories of Japan and China; as a result, from a Western point of view, its religious and cultural background seems to greatly resemble those. However, if you happened to spend some time in the country, you might discern tiny, but important differences. The course of the country‟s 20th century history, burdened with numerous conflicts, have brought with it an economical development not known before, and by the end of the eighties this development resulted in a politically and economically balanced society. As a consequence of the burst-like growth city-dwellers live the everyday life of consumer society, but in remote villages you might find collective forms of life resembling the third world.
48. The village of Won-Gol, South Korea The co-existence of two contrasting states on the Korean Peninsula is not without problems, but social conflicts inspired the contemporary art scene: they have been first thematised as objects of discourse, and then have been converted into dynamic energies. Cultural policy has done all it could have done, too, to attain an internationally noted position in the art scene, worthy of the country‟s economic wealth. Since 1995 South Korea is present on the Venetian Biennale and on almost all significant art events. In larger cities state- financed museums of contemporary art are being built; the private sector discovered the field, too: significant private collections have been established. The most significant of these is Gallery Arario, founded by Kim Chang-Il in the town Cheonan 80 kilometres from Seoul. It gathered 3500 items since its 2002 opening. Galleries with the same name have been established in Seoul, New York and Beijing, too. The project of the owner is to support the career of Korean artists and to internationally promote Korean contemporary art. Korea plays an important role in organising Asian biennales that are becoming more and more significant. Korea gives home to Gwanju and Busan biennales; these two have the highest budget in the Eastern world. Though less famous, but not less significant is the world‟s only nature art biennale which takes place in the once royal capitol Gongju lying in the centre of the peninsula.
Geumgang Nature Art Biennale
Antecedents
The biennale takes place in the Nature Art Park lying on the hill of Yeonmi-san near the city. In 1981 here took refuge those young artists who graduated on different art universities and were disengaged from the several years military service; who were fed up with the experience of the dictatorial regime, but refused the “blessings” of rapid economic growth, too; and thus chose nature outside the city for the place of their art. They founded the group Yatoo, the organiser of the biennale. The name Yatoo means “thrown into nature”, which expression has a semantic variant, viz. “born into nature”. The group invented an original working method besides individual open air work: in each season they reside in nature for one week, without materials and tools, and create works contributing with nature and with each other. They labelled these one-week collaborations Four Season Workshop; it also provided an opportunity for them to discuss the possibilities residing in their ways of expression. They documented the collective works and presented them in a modest annual catalogue.40
40 Catalogues are available only in Korean language; you understand this if you consider that the young artists at the time did not have the faintest clue about their future international audience.
49. Ko Seung-Hyun: The Cow and Me, performance, 1982
These black and white catalogues document honest and intimate co-operations; they reflect the loose filial joy of collective creation and the unclouded peace found in nature In 1981 the group was founded by twenty artists; some of them deserted the group, others entered the attractive world of galleries, and only the hardcore remained, those most engaged to nature: Ko Seung-Hyun, Jeon Won-Gil, Ri Eung-Woo, Kang Hee-Joon and Kim Hae-Sim. They are together until this day and hold their seasonal séances regularly. In the 1983 workshop the expression “nature art” was born; its birth is attributed to Ko Seung-Hyun, and it is now in use not only in Korea but in most regions of the Asian continent. In the eighties the group already believed that rural peasants are the true nature artists, since these people know and depend on even the tiniest resonances of the surrounding forests and fields. They co-operate with nature instead of conquering her. Lead by this idea, by the end of the decade Yatoo established a close creative contact with the dwellers of the village Dongwon-Ri, 50 kilometres from Gongju. Around that time, thanks to its reputation on the artistic scene, the group received an invitation to the exhibition room of the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. In retrospect, this exhibition, containing documentations of Yatoo‟s activity until that time, proved to be a very important moment in the shaping of nature art. Those German artists attended their lecture on the University who felt an attraction towards creation in nature, and/or experimented with such expressive possibilities. The junction of European and Asian nature art events stems from this encounter. Namely, Yatoo programs have become international since then. Two years later twelve German and twelve Korean artists gained an opportunity to work on the summer meeting. Next year Yatoo again received an invitation to Germany; at this time, instead of documentations, they exhibited their works created in Schueberg. Their international relations have been expanded to such an extent that on the program named International Nature Art Symposium and Exhibition in 1995 there were 128 participants from 23 countries. The nearly 400 pages catalogue41 contains the works of the artists, and the data of those other nature art events they were familiar with. In the following years they concentrated on the construction of a building, in which they might receive home and foreign artists on resident programs. In the village of Won-Gol, far from the noise of the world, in a picturesque, inspiring land they built a house with their own hands, and named it Yatoo Nature Art House. 42 Along with the resident programmes they re-launched their large scale international events after 2000; these provided important experience for them, and proved to be vital from the view of cultural politics, too. The conditions were made available to hold the first Nature Art Biennale in 2004. The group received subsidies from the government and from municipalities, and from those local entrepreneurs who were proud that their town provides the scene for a ranked international programme. Anke Mellin43 was asked to work as a curator; her experience as an organiser, and her insight into the international scene had greatly contributed to develop a more thought over principle for inviting artists (in comparison with the 1995 event); and there were some “big names” among the participants. A pioneer in eco- art, the American Brandon Bellengée was present; or the other American, Tim Collins who serves the case of nature art as a lecturer and as an artist, too. The German Cornelia Konrads became famous on the Italian programmes of Arte Sella; François Frechet is known as the founder of AININ (Artists in Nature International Network). The younger generation was represented by the Japanese Yutaka Kobayashi, who took part on the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale before, and who is an agile creator engaged to nature; and by Insa Winkler very well known in Germany. Eastern Europe was represented by the Polish Tomasz Domanszki. Besides members of Yatoo, and the veteran Yoo Dong-Jo (who participated on the famous Ressource Kunst exhibition, too), mostly young Korean artists were present. There is a study in the catalogue44 of the biennale by Heike Strelow45. It summarises international events of nature art, and provides a theoretical background for them. The decisive
41 See the catalogue Movement towards a New Century. 42 For the history of Yatoo I used my own notes made during the lecture presented by Ko Seung-Hyun in Gyergyószárhegy, Romania, August 2007. 43 The German artist and curator has been involved in questions of nature art and ecology since 1982. Since 1994 she has worked as a curator at a number of international exhibitions. Several international exhibitions in Korea are linked with her name. 44 See 2004 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale catalogue. 45 Ibid. p. 213. intention of the organisers thus becomes clear: it is to function as a junction of different nature art events in the world by showing an overall picture of developments during two years.
Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2006
In the name of integrative intentions and mapping the organisers take over difficulties in order to invite artists from those countries that were regarded as white spots on the map of nature art up to that time. The method of choosing them was simple: organisers collected the documentations of the international events they were familiar with, consulted with other organisers, and then created a list of names. On the basis of this list the organisers asked artists to create project plans, and after the evaluation the final list of names was made. Apart from inlanders, Americans, Western Europeans and the Japanese, such artists were invited as Varol Topac from Turkey, Rumen Dimitrov from Bulgaria, Péter Pál from Romania, Branko Smon from Slovenia, Srtijdom van der Merwe from South Africa, Firman Djamil from Indonesia, Roger Tibon from the Philippines, or me myself from Hungary. Al of us took part on such ranked programme for the first time.
50. Strijdom van der Merwe: New Growth, Gong-Ju, South Korea, 2006 During the one-month-long work it was a pleasure to experience the professionalism of organisation and the organisers‟ will to provide the most overall assistance in order to make it possible for each artist to create with highest care. There were screenings at the evenings, making it possible for the artists to get to know each other works, and creating the topic of conversations during collective dinners. The atmosphere was rather familiar, in accordance with the original intentions of the organisers. In the course of the working process on the hill of Yeonmi-san it turned out that the place was exceptional as there were a lot of graves in the forest.
51. Grave on the hill of Yeonmi-san, Gongju, South Korea
A traditional Korean way of burying is that a person chooses a site in the forest important to her/him during her/his lifetime, buys it, and uses it later as a burying place. Walking in forests we may come across familiar burying-places on the least expected spots; usually they are shaped semi-spherical, and harmonically fit into the land. Those people whose financial situation would not make it possible to buy such a site, choose a cheaper, more symbolic way of burying: they place the ashes of the deceased at the root of her/his favourite tree; thus securing the dead person‟s return to the whirling circulation of the Great Unity. The environment reminded me of events done by MAMŰ in the eighties at the Water- Hills; those hills served probably as burying-places, too, for the people of the pagan era. What was the attractive force of these mystical sites for artists to choose them as place for creation? For the Marosvásárhely group it was perhaps the individualistically attractive shape of the land, and the mystery regarding the origin of the construction of water-hills. Korean artists were most probably influenced by their geomantic knowledge (which is Feng- shui for the Chinese) in their choice. The presence of tradition is tangible in rural Korea. Get-togethers of dancing and singing originating from several thousand years old harvest feasts are rather popular until now; in contrast with similar Japanese and Chinese events, they are characteristic of their dynamic nature, and virtuosic dances. Korean folk music largely differs from Korean court music and aristocratic music (chongak) in its instrumentation and sophistication. In contrast with the dignity of the highly stylised court dances folk dance with its rapid, vivid motions revivify ancient shamanistic elements. We participated on several occasions of village feasts during our stay, so we might have witnessed the community-forming power of dancing. These get-togethers deeply influenced my work: I got familiar with kangari, a folk percussion instrument, which I used in my creation, modifying my initial plan. Similarly to my work in Japan, I constructed an instrument functioning as a windmill whose moving construction make the installed kangaris sound. A special feature of the five-meter high wooden construction was that I used exclusively chopsticks in its jointing instead of nails or screws.
52. István Erőss: Music Mill, (part), Gongju, South Korea, 2006
The proportion numbers of the construction recalled those of Transylvanian folk art at this time, too. In construction technique I deliberately chose to invoke the DIY-nature of folk art instead of industrial production. The formal appearance and the technical devices of the work all come from folk art; the result was an instrument played by the power of nature. The work was set on a windy place; the mast was moved in accordance with the strength of the wind, and it played the sounds familiar to Korean ears.
53. István Erőss: Music Mill, Gongju, South Korea, 2006 A conference was held during the days before the opening on the local university. It was called “International Nature Art Symposium”, and for lectures were held presenting four different approaches. The text of the lectures has been published (Yatoo, 2006a). The lecturers were the following: Sam Bower, manager of the virtual nature art museum greenmuseum.org, artist from California (pp. 45-64). Clive Adams spoke about the projects of Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, which is leaded by him (pp. 40-44).. Dave Pritchard discussed the possible relationship between science and art, especially between natural sciences and fine arts (pp. 65-73). The Korean lecturer of the symposium, Kim-Jong-Gil summarised the history of Yatoo (pp. 33-39); for me the most exciting part of his lecture was when he emphasised the importance of preserving peasant culture. He reached so far to state that art should return to its original environment, into small rural communities, where agriculture, the contact with nature is always present. His final conclusion is that “Agriculture is art and art is agriculture.” (p. 36.) His line of thought (in an over-simplified way, though) express the desire that contemporary artistic discourse should adopt the holistic view of peasant lifestyle. The argumentation recalled the Romanian artists‟ self-imposed exile into nature in the eighties, whose intentions were basically the same as the ideas that the Korean lecturer presented. Gheorghe Ilea and Alexandru Chira labelled their artistic scene, the peasant yard, as the “temple of memory” (Novotny, 1989. p. 32); and the priests of this temple would be peasants themselves, the artists of nature. Apart from the documentations of artworks you might find short interviews done by Clive Adams and Kim-Jong-Gil with nine artists; it is an honour that I was among these nine; questions were directed on the altering artistic approaches of the artists coming from different parts of the world. Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2008
The selection of artists participating on the 2008 biennale happened in rather an extraordinary way. In the beginning of 2007 the organisers published an announcement which urged artists to take part in the project “Pre-Biennale”. Artists had to present two works: a documentation of an already realised work, and a detailed plan for the 2008 biennale. In the Autumn of 2007 there were two exhibitions held from the collected material in Gongju National Museum. The exhibition of plans was titled “Nature in Mind”; while the exhibition from documentations was called “Nature Scopes”. The international jury decided about the invited artists based on the material presented at these two exhibitions. Both exhibitions received representative catalogues presenting all the competition works. 46 The competition works show varying levels of design, and there were such a large number of them which must have made the presentation of them rather expensive; so the question directed at the organisers seems to be legitimate: do these two events deserved such detailed catalogues? The answer of the organisers proves their commitment to think in advance and their claim to discover new artists. According to them, these two pre-biennale catalogues, precisely because of their dimensions, may inspire those nature artists who are yet to begin to try themselves out on international events. Finally, 23 Korean and 15 international artists were selected to take part on the 2008 biennale. The decrease in the number of invitations, the more considered choice resulted in a higher quality of works. Apart from the renowned European artists like Urs Twellmann, Kenny Morrison, MADE or the American Steven Siegel, there were some East Europeans, too, but we lacked representatives of other continents, Africa, South America, and of countries of the Middle East and of the Caucasus. Their absence may be explained by their unfamiliarity with the 2007 announcement. John K. Grande wrote a study published in the catalogue of the biennale which discusses the place of nature art in contemporary art, and its possible future development. 47
46 See catalogues Geumgang Nature Art Pre-Biennale 2007. Nature Scopes and Nature in Mind. 47 See Appendix: John K. Grande Nature is the Art of which We are A Part.
54.Steven Seigel. Like a Rock, from a Tree?, Gongju, South Korea, 2008
Owing to the persevere, resolute and purposeful work of group Yatoo Geumgang Nature Art Biennale has become a high-ranked event in the last four years. It is considered to be equally ranked with the great Asian biennales (Ronnau, 2008) and to be the most important integrative event of nature art.
55. István Erőss: Thirty Thousand Chopsticks, Gongju, South Korea, 2008
SUMMARY
The Eastern man‟s worldview is influenced much more by religious and cultural traditions than the Western man‟s. As I outlined it in my thesis, each Eastern religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto or Taoism, approaches nature with a special attitude and spirit, very different from ours, which fundamentally determines the Eastern artists‟ practice of nature art. Hinduism teaches that the eternal, infinite, unchanging and united World Spirit permeates the whole of the universe, all objects and creatures; Tao‟s final goal is to be one with nature; Buddhism‟s attitude to nature is at one time ethical and aesthetical; while Shinto respects nature as kami (sacred) – these all testify that the relation of Eastern people towards nature is much more artistic and sophisticated (thanks to their living traditions) than that of the Western man. Their relationship is sacred rather than hierarchical. Intervention into nature might be conceivable for them only on the highest level; it is proven (among other things) by the fact that they see and do gardening as high art and philosophy. The Eastern man‟s worldview defines not only her/his relation to nature but also the relation to the objects created. Wabi-sabi whose aesthetics can hardly be interpreted for Westerners, Feng-shui that intends to bring about the harmony of the external environment, or its Korean version, Sen, and the artifacts of the Indian artisanship follow nature, its laws, dynamics and powers. The Eastern man‟s ultimate goal is a „creative union with nature” that is obviously perceptible in the nature art works as well. The Eastern nature art has never had aggressive, conquering or even transforming intentions. It is much more characterized by the intention of the gentle action of leaving a sign behind following the inner dynamics of nature. This approach can be observed in the nature art manifestations that emerged first in the seventies with the debut of the Korean Yatoo in the Asian region, and which have become more prominent since then. The emergence of land art probably played a part in Yatoo‟s move to nature. However, what has happened in nature art since then can be considered as a result of an autonomous development, which, in my opinion, is absolutely independent from the developments of Western creative art. The Asian “success” of nature art most probably owes much to the openness of the audience and of cultural policy, too. The latter does not intend to use and abuse the phenomenon, but (in contrast with the Western system where it is the inner logic of the institutional framework of contemporary art that induces negative tendencies of attitude) it provides real support to the more and more numerous events. From the debut of land art onwards nature emerges in the Western contemporary art as the location, subject and material of the artistic act. It is no longer just a motif of representation or a background scene. Among the different attitudes of artists towards nature those were acknowledged and followed that approached nature in the spirit of acceptance, worry and humility. The classic „earth moving” land artists – Walter de Maria, Heizer, Smithson, etc – deliberately did not care for ecology and environmental issues. They rather proclaimed the heroism of the human (creative) power, referring especially to their own personal skills. To the criticism that land art rapes the land, Smithson answered that sex itself is a violent process (Rosenthal, p. 71.). Poor Mother Earth Gaia! As a result of the criticism received, this macho behavior softened by the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties. Their activities calmed down into re-cultivating acts which from time to time reflected ecological problems (Heizer: Effegy Tumuli, Buffalo Rocks, Illionis, 1985). Their passionate exodus from the White Cube was only partly realized too, because of „sociological development” and financial reasons they drifted back to the galleries in a roundabout way. Their attraction to monumentality remained unchanged. It is proven not only by the above typical land art works but also by the pieces they exhibited in galleries such as the Walter de Maria‟s 5 Five Continents Sculptor48 with dimensions of 13 x 23.5 meter, weighing 325 tons. In contrast with them, the artists labeled as middle-on-the-roaders (Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Hans Haacke) consider their attitude as a ritual interaction during which they hardly intervene in the landscape, or they just frame it with the lenses of the camera. Conscious or unconscious, but traces of Buddhist attitude can be observed in their activity. In their case we can speak of a sort of alliance with nature where, besides utilizing natural materials, one can be part of the interaction of the artist with the resources and the elements. They confront the man-made geometry with the chaotic composition of nature quite discreetly in their works that are more moderate in their dimensions as well. For them intervention cannot be dominant. Therefore, they highlight the dependence of people on nature in their artworks that could be considered as certificates of the respect of nature. This creative method suggesting a slight Buddhist attitude spread in Europe too. Some well-known curators obeying to the century-old habits tried to cram this method into a system, display it in museum-like circumstances and according to the logic of the museums, then operate it as a homogenous network. By now it is obvious, that this project failed
48 Alte Stadtgalerie, Stuttgart, 1987–1988 because its logic contradicted the basic principles of nature art, corroborating that the rules of art industry cannot be applied in this field. Nature art cannot be domesticated with the methods of gallery industry as it happened with arte povera. The three artists whom I put into the last group and describe as „eco-labourers”, Alan Sonfist, Denes Agnes and the Harissons are probably the farthest from the "earth moving” artists of the first group. Creating in the spirit of ecology and environmentalism, they emphasize post-materialistic values. The increasingly agitational ecoart came to life in the United States based on the activities of the artists of this group. In this school the aesthetic element became less important and the social act overlapping with other disciplines grew more significant. This typical American phenomenon has become known as ecovention. In retrospect, and seen through the perspective of nature art, we might see that there is a change of their attitude towards nature among Western artists since the first appearances of nature artworks (namely, since the appearance of land art). This shift is closely interrelated with ecological problems and a higher social sensitivity towards them. We can conclude, however, that the tendency of change that can be perceived in the perception of nature of the Western art society points to such an approach to nature, based on respect and harmony, that has always been an integral part of the Eastern world view. It was very fascinating for me to discover that on the imaginary map of nature art Eastern Europe is closer to Asia than to its own continent as it is proven by the surprising analogies between some works made by the groups Yatoo and MAMŰ. In the Eastern part of Europe an isolated creative method has become general which viewed nature as a place for escape. The close-to-nature peasant culture of this region preserved natural liturgies from the pagan period which, though they have been mixed with Christian rituals over time, secured the sacred relationship based on respect to nature. The crafts of folk artisanship, originating back into fading time, but inherited by tradition, were already present for the artists to learn them. Nevertheless, though the exile into nature for East European artists is motivated by political/social reasons (just like for the members of Yatoo), in this region the encounter of progressive artistic tendencies with nature and living folk art was not able to constitute a coherent art movement precisely because of the political situation.
Thanks to the activity and the European introduction of the Korean group Yatoo the encounter of the Western and Eastern branches of nature art did happen. The nature artists of our time continue simultaneously both the Eastern nature art philosophy and the American eco-laborers‟ novel thinking, and proclaim the necessity of paradigm shift formulated by the latter. They are willing and open to co-operate with anyone to achieve their goals, moreover, they need the co-operation of the social environment for realizing their projects, and thus influence the public thinking towards such tendencies. Under the sign of these recognitions, and as a result of further subtle steps, a nature art network has been realized, integrating more and more strongly the Eastern and Western nature artists. This network is comprehended and operated by a number of organisations, periodicals and thematic homepages. The only criterion to voluntarily join this widespread network of different creative attitudes is the basic attitude of “humble approach”, which itself has become more and more subtle over the years. The increasing variety of environmental problems and questions demand an increasing sophistication of artistic answers. Nature art, that appeared in Asia and became an established term, is still an elusive concept in Europe and it is not used at all in the United States. In my opinion nature art is such an exciting, comprehensive field of visual art that provides opportunity for the artists who want to leave the gallery system anyway (public art, street art) for real, due to the worsening ecology issues very relevant, exciting and socially committed artistic expression. The fact that nature art appeared as an academic programme in some European universities indicates that its canonization has started. I am convinced that this tendency should be strengthened in Europe. It is especially true for the Eastern European region, where this time the artistic expression in question would not mean the takeover of a Western practice, but the survival of an existing, traditional „own” artistic mode.