Despite the extreme anthropisation of the environment in which we live, we are confronted with nature from birth. We seem to master it with what we call common sense, but that sense is actually wrong. Nature is full of mysteries – we perceive it unconsciously – some atavistic, others born recently thanks to scientific discoveries.
For instance, it is now known that natural phenomena that underpin life on Earth, such as the production of oxygen by plants, take place on a quantum basis, and nothing is so little perceived by common sense as quantum mechanics – think for instance of the phenomenon of entranglement, the mirror-like behaviour of pairs of electrons even more than a thousand kilometres apart.
Just as in our relationship with the objects produced by art, our perception, which is fundamentally influenced by culture, counts first and foremost in our relationship with nature.
Another example: nature presents shapes that seem absolutely random and chaotic. Think of the branches of a tree, the coastline, the ridges of a mountain, the shapes of a wave.
In reality, thanks to a great mathematician suffering from dyscalculia, Mandel’brot, we have known for decades that all these ‘designs’ follow simple, recursive formulas, the ones that underlie the theory of fractals. And hidden in those formulas is a significant part of the beauty we perceive in nature, as instance the beauty of a landscape.
Nature has much that is invisible in it, just like art. The American philosopher Susanne Langer worked on this in her first, famous essay on aesthetics, Feeling and Form.
When discussing nature, it is always important to remember Alexander Langer, Italy’s greatest eco-activist, whose father was Viennese and whose mother tongue was German, but who sadly died young. Here, we wonder what would have happened if the two Langers – not related and far apart territorially – had met and collaborated.
Rediscovering forms in nature, nurturing a feeling first imagined and then put into practice as a work of art, and eventually returning to perceive an artistic beauty in the primary world to which we all belong: nature, we animals among others, potentially capable of communicating with the plant and mineral world as well. That we are then all composed of the same primal elements, like those electrons living in a permanent coupling whose mystery is indeed close to that of the great works of art.
Nature and form, through feeling: this is the key to understanding proposals that appear sincere and spontaneous in the expression of so many artists who clearly constitute one of many possible selections. The peculiarity of their artistic expressions, the proposing of works in which a personal and non-trivial style is discernible, also unites them in their choice.
Nature | Feeling | Form project, conceived by the curator Riccardo Lisi, takes place in two stages. The first took place in the project rooms of the Castel Belasi Museum, a charming castle in Val di Non (Trentino), and brought together the emerging Swiss scene with that of Vienna, thanks to co-curator Lukas Willmann.
The second stage opens on Tuesday 3 February at 6 p.m. in the independent Viennese space Kunstraum am Schauplatz: an international collective exhibition in which emerging and mid-career artists will engage in dialogue with true stars of the art world.
Nature and form, through feeling: this is the key to understanding the sincere and spontaneous expressions of the many artists who clearly constitute one of the many possible selections. They are also united by the uniqueness of their artistic expressions, works in which personal, contemporary and never banal styles can be found.
This exhibition will be open until 14 March, from Wednesday to Friday, from 4 to 6 p.m. and by appointment, featuring works that reflect the powerful and mysterious aesthetics of nature, such as those by Julius von Bismarck, Corinne L. Rusch, Pino Musi and Paulo Wirz, but also those that denounce its exploitation: Gianni Motti, Stefano Cagol and Byron Gago. Others recount the marginalisation of those forced to live in nature because they are homeless, such as the installation by g. olmo stuppia.
Many artists exhibit elegantly conceptual works here: Una Szeemann, Alfredo Aceto, Maurizio Mercuri, Nanna Kaiser, Alessandro Rolandi and the duo Hanakam & Schuller, but there is also a strong young and ironic presence in the discussion of nature in art, represented by Cassidy Toner, Karin Ferrari, Kevin Carrozzo, George Rei and Costanza Giorgi. Finally, the materials and forms of nature are revisited and reinterpreted by Lisa Lurati, Luka Berchtold, Sarah Rechberger, Andrina Jörg and Hugo Canoilas, as well as in the in-depth and personal research of Gaia Di Bello and Sandro Pianetti.
Admission to the exhibition is free; the show is supported by Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council, Fogarassy Privat Stiftung and the Kunstraum am Schauplatz association.