István Erőss

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.

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