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– Emanuele Coccia, The Life of Plants, 2019
One cannot separate the plant – neither physically nor metaphysically – from the world that accommodates it. It is the most intense, radical, and paradigmatic form of being in the world. To interrogate plants means to understand what it means to be in the world. Plants embody the most direct and elementary connection that life can establish with the world. The opposite is equally true: the plant is the purest observer when it comes to contemplating the world in its totality. […] We will never be able to understand a plant unless we have understood what the world is.
Botanical Madness
Plant thinking in contemporary art
In recent years, artists from all over the world and from extremely diverse backgrounds have shown a remarkable interest in plants and trees. This botanical interest cannot be seen separately from the rapid development in our knowledge of plants that has occurred in recent decades. Scientific research has shown that plants are not inert ‘things’, but intelligent entities that are not only able to see, smell, feel, communicate and hear, but even to orientate themselves and to remember.
In Botanischer Wahnsinn, the Kröller-Müller Museum presents a kaleidoscopic selection of works by artists who examine the rich world of plants from different perspectives. The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections: Scientific plants (process and taxonomy), Ethnobotany (plants for human use, mystical plants and witchcraft), Ideological plants (plants in political, postcolonial and ecofeminist discourse), Weeds (good and bad plants), Regeneration and ‘green remediation’ (cleaning polluted land with the help of plants).
The exhibition Botanischer Wahnsinn is the first in a new series in which the Kröller-Müller Museum, purposely located ‘in the midst of nature’ by its founder Helene Kröller-Müller, addresses relevant themes regarding nature and ecology and renews the relationship with its environment.
Along with this new knowledge about plants, there is also increasing awareness of the crucial role that plants play in the stability of ecosystems, as well as of the alarming loss of species during the current era. To halt climate change and the loss of biodiversity, humanity needs to cast off its ‘plant blindness’ and develop a real interest in and sensitivity for plants.
OVERVIEW ROOM I AND II WITH WORK BY GEMMA ANDERSON, JOSEPH BEUYS AND LILI FISCHER
OVERVIEW ROOM I AND II WITH WORK BY JOSEPH BEUYS, LILI FISCHER AND herman de vries
Scientific plants
Since the late 1970s, Buisman has been studying the form principle of phyllotaxis: the spiralling arrangement of leaves, branches and spines in plants. Anderson creates her etchings and drawings in close collaboration with scientists. She has single-handedly developed the drawing discipline Isomorphology: an artistic-scientific study of formal relationships and symmetry in plants, animals and minerals. In her recent ‘relational process drawings’, Anderson goes beyond the outward appearance of plants and uses diagrams to visualize the complex relationships between energy, time, motion and environment at the molecular, cellular and organism level.
To bring order to the virtually endless variety of plant species, the core activities of botanists have traditionally included fieldwork, form study, identification, classification and developing nomenclature.
herman de vries’ monumental eschenauer journal is like a diary of plant expeditions around the artist’s hometown. The journal, one of his most important works, is being exhibited at the Kröller-Müller Museum for the first time since its acquisition in 2012.
From his earliest works as an artist, Joseph Beuys demonstrated a keen interest in the form, use and symbolism of plants. The photogravure from which the exhibition derives its title shows Beuys in action near Halifax, Canada in 1976. Together with a botanist, he scours the vegetation in vain for a Japanese dwarf rhododendron that can be found there – while sighing: ‘Botanischer Wahnsinn!’
While de vries emphasizes the unique individual characteristics and endless variation of plants within a single species, Gemma Anderson and Sjoerd Buisman focus on principles and processes in plants.
Josephbeuys1976WahnsinnBotanischer
Garden of Forking Paths; Protein Maze No. 10, 2018
Origami Embryo Drawings, 2017
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Garden of Forking Paths; Protein Maze No. 8, 2018
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Collected Uncollected, 2013 copper BCcollectionetchingartist002.677
pencil and colour pencil on paper collection artist BC 002.673
colour pencil, pastel and gouache on Kröller-Müllerpaper Museum, Otterlo
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Spirals in Opuntia Gosseliniana, 1981
copper etching and Japanese ink on paper collection artist
pencil and watercolour on paper collection artist
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Spiralen bij Opuntia Gosseliniana, 1981
Garden of Forking Paths; Protein Maze No. 6, 2018
07 g emma a nderson Belfast 1981
Isomorphology Series, 2012-2014
pencil and colour pencil on paper collection artist
pencil and colour pencil on paper collection artist BC 002.675
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Structural Intuition Series, 2016
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Phyllotaxis Series, 2018 pencil and colour pencil on paper collection artist BC 002.676
colour pencil and watercolour on paper collection artist
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copper etching and watercolour on paper collection artist BC 002.615
Representation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Archetypal Plant Form (Drawn from Plants at Tresco Abbey Gardens, Isles of Scilly), 2013
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Garden of Forking Paths; Mitosis Score, Spiraling Spindles, 2019 pencil, watercolour and colour pencil on collectionpaper artist
Alkmaar 1931 eschenauer journal, januaridezember 2002 eschenau journal, januarydecember, photographs,2002colour pencil, objet trouvé, and collage (dried plants) on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo acquired with support from the Mondriaan KMFoundation133.243
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Garden of Forking Paths; Mitosis Score No. 1-12, 2019
pencil, watercolour and colour pencil on collectionpaper artist
13 Joseph b euys Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986 Botanischer Wahnsinn, 1976 Botanical Madness, 1976 BCprivatephotogravurecollection002.614
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OVERVIEW ROOM I WITH WORK BY SJOERD BUISMAN AND GEMMA ANDERSON
ndersongemmaa(detail)2012-2014SeriesIsomorphology
– Gemma Anderson
Isomorphology is a comparative, drawing based method of enquiry into the shared forms of animal, mineral and vegetable morphologies. As a holistic and visual approach to classification, Isomorphology runs parallel to scientific practice while belonging to the domain of artistic creation. It is complementary to science: addressing relationships that are left out of the scientific classification of animal, vegetable and mineral morphologies.
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– herman de vries, 2016
what nature offers us is our fundamental right. no one can refuse or forbid it. that offer should always be available to everyone.
herman de vries – eschenauer journal, januari-dezember 2002 (detail)
de vries reflects upon what he calls ‘natural relationships’: the thousands of years of connection between people and their natural environment, and particularly the realm of plants. Over the years, de vries has developed into an international authority in the field of psychedelic and mind-altering plants. He is also an experienced user. The collection of hashish pipes shown here was acquired for personal use by de vries during his many travels in Morocco between 1974 and 2011. With their wide variety, they form a rare ethnographic collection from a bygone era. The work has a strong autobiographical dimension. As the artist explains: ‘I have used nearly all the pipes in my better years, some almost daily’.
Human societies have always been intimately connected with plants for use as food, medicine, mind-altering substance, building material, tools, clothing, and so on. These relationships between plants and humans are studied in the discipline of Inethnobotany.hiswork,herman
Ethnobotany
In a similar way, Giuseppe Penone’s herbarium with frottages offers a lyrical account of his experiences with 33 different herbs in text and images. Lois Weinberger has a special preoccupation with the highly toxic Datura stramonium (thorn apple). His Plant which makes Faces refers to the powerful hallucinogenic property of this plant.
Since the 1970s, Lili Fischer has characterized her artistic methodology as ‘Feldforschung’ (fieldwork) – a term she borrows from ethnology. Between 1977 and 1986, Fischer devotes herself entirely to a highly unconventional and playful research into medicinal plants that is also critical of authority. With interactive performances and happenings, drawings, herbaria and installations, she recalls lost knowledge and experiences with medicinal herbs. In the work of this ecofeminist avant-la-lettre, mysticism, superstition and witchcraft combine with an intensely personal, sensory experience of plant extracts – in the form of compresses, saunas and foot baths, rubbing ointments and exotic dishes.
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07 Lois Weinberger
06 Li L i Fischer Priwall 1947
with chillums (ceramic pipes) from Kathmandu, Nepal, collected by the artist in Museum1989Hedendaagse Kunst De Domijnen, Sittard BC 002.622
Trentatre Erbe, 1989 Thirty-three herbs, 1989 BCprivate109/120lithographscollection002.623
mixed BCprivatemediacollection002.618
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chillums verzameld op aardewerkmarkten in kathmandu, nepal, 1989/2018
Pult zur: Gewürzpredigt für Pfeffersäcke, 1984
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Indian ink on cellophane bags and Datura stramonium seeds
Alkmaar 1931
chillums collected at pottery markets at kathmandu, nepal, display1989/2018case
Studio Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.662
Kraut & Zauber-Laube, 1978-1986 Herbs and Magic Arbor, 1978-1986 mixed BCprivatemediacollection002.617
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display case with pipes, pipe bowls, pipe cleaner and pipe borer from Morocco, collected by the artist for personal use between 1974 and 2011 Museum Hedendaagse Kunst De Domijnen, Sittard BC 002.621
Garessio 1947
Priwall 1947
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sibsi & skaf verzameld bij marokkaanse souks, 1974-2011/2018 sibsi & skaf collected at moroccan souks, 1974-2011/2018
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Pulpit to: Spice Sermon for Pepper Bags, 1984
Plant which makes Faces, 2004
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OVERVIEW ROOM II WITH WORK BY GIUSEPPE PENONE AND herman de vries
‘natural relationships’ includes almost everything in the environment we live in – the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, what we eat, the electromagnetic fields we find ourselves in, the earth we walk on. however, it is the plants that connect us to our living environment in a special way, as they contain the substances that make up and regulate our bodies. […] the world does not disintegrate into separate phenomena, it is a self-regulating whole! in this sense I also consider my work to be political. – herman de vries, 1989
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FischeriLLi (detail)1978-1986Zauber-Laube&Kraut–
– Lili Fischer, 1980
‘Medicinal plants’ stand for smell, colour, shape, aroma of mystery, magic – something unknown that fascinates, unsettles, arouses curiosity, and both warms, soothes (St. John’s wort), repels and menacingly takes over (henbane). Plants tend to invite me to think of actions for them as well as to revive their old meanings so that their forgotten powers can better unfold.
Li L i Fischer Kraut & Zauber-Laube 1978-1986 (detail)
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FischeriLLi(detail)1984PfeffersäckefürGewürzpredigtzur:Pult
Author
Seeds, 1974
‘Do you realize,’ the phytolinguist will say to the aesthetic critic, ‘that they couldn’t even read Eggplant?’ And they will smile at our ignorance, as they pick up their rucksacks and hike on up to read the newly deciphered lyrics of the lichen on the north face of Pike’s Peak. – Ursula K. Le Guin, The of the Acacia
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OVERVIEW ROOM II AND III WITH WORK BY LILI FISCHER, herman de vries , CANDICE LIN, MARK DION AND ANA MENDIETA
MENDIETA
For his project On Tropical Nature (1991), he follows in the footsteps of nineteenthcentury colonial explorers and spends four weeks in the tropical rainforest of Venezuela. He ships his finds – not inventoried – and eventually also his tools in wooden crates to an exhibition space in Caracas, where the materials are arranged and presented without his intervention. Dion’s Herbarium Perrine is a fictional herbarium of the American explorer Henry Perrine (1797-1840), a pioneer in subtropical botany who documented the flora in the state of Florida. During a raid by the Seminole Tribe, he was murdered and his valuable herbarium completely destroyed by fire. Dion’s portfolio of pressed marine algae masquerades as the only surviving fragment of Perrine’s herbarium.
Numerous artists show an interest in plants from societal, political, postcolonial and (eco)feminist perspectives.
Mark Dion brings art and science together in his encyclopaedic work. He expresses institutional criticism, contributes to the postcolonial discourse in contemporary art and speaks of the devastating impact of humans during the Anthropocene era.
Ideological plants
Joseph Beuys has entered the art history books as the figurehead of green politics and co-founder of the German political party Die Grünen. Less well known is the ‘völkische’ ideological background in which his work is partly rooted and the fact that Beuys’ political involvement initially concerned the right-wing conservative party aud (Aktionsgemeinschaft Unabhangiger Deutscher). During the Documenta V in Kassel (1972), Beuys participates with a political bureau, the ‘Organisation für direkte Demokratie durch Volksabstimmung’ (Organization for Direct Democracy by Referendum). During his daily discussions with visitors, a red rose stands in a measuring cylinder beside him.
As the daughter of a Cuban political dissident, Havana-born Ana Mendieta is sent to the United States at a young age, where she grows up in foster care. In video performances, she attempts to reunite the landscape and the female body. In 1983 she writes ‘Having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence, I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast out from the womb (Nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the Universe. It is a return to the maternal source’. Mendieta, who died at the age of 36 in a fall from the apartment she shared with artist Carl Andre, has grown into an icon for (eco)feminist artists with her poetic, radical work and her unexplained death. The portfolio Pietre Foglie celebrates the marriage of Mendieta and Andre.
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Using leaves that she collects during her stay at the American Academy in Rome, she composes anthropomorphic figures as a reinterpretation of the motif of the tree of life from her earlier work.
The complex works of Candice Lin elicit connotations with ethnographic and natural history presentations. Her work deals with themes such as representation, race, gender and sexuality. The etching 5 Kingdoms pays homage to the theories of American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis on co-evolution – the evolutionary process in which different species constantly adapt to each other – and symbiogenesis – the creation of a new species through the symbiotic relationship of two or more initially separate species. With the Etruscan-inspired monumental funerary sculpture Future Sarcophagus, Lin attempts to look beyond her own death. The installation Hormonal Fog, a collaboration between Lin and P Staff, is a hacked fog machine that releases a herbal mixture into the space. The artists contend that the ‘hormonal fog’ lowers the testosterone level of male visitors.
Concord (M a ) 1979
Rose für direkte Demokratie, 1973 Rose for Direct Democracy, 1973
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Cannibalizing Cultural Memory, 2015
Future Sarcophagus, 2020
graphite, archival pigment printed images, dried licorice and hops and silkscreened text on CandicepaperLinand François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.644
Ohne die Rose tun wir’s nicht, da können wir gar nicht mehr denken, 1972
graphite, archival pigment printed images, dried plant and silkscreened text on paper Candice Lin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.642
lithograph on cardboard, with hand-written text private13/20 collection
Animal within the Animal, 2015 coloured pencil and acrylic, archival pigment printed images, dried plant and silkscreened text on paper Candice Lin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.643
glass measuring cylinder and rose private collection BC 002.627
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graphite, archival pigment printed images, dried Rose of Jericho and silkscreened text on CandicepaperLin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.645
07 c andice Lin Concord (M a ) 1979
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The Hand of an Important Man, 2015
Minimizing Males, 2015
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ceramic, soil, worms, maize, rice, wheat, sugarcane, opium poppy, potato, ginger and CandicepepperLin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles BC 002.646
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Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986
Concord (M a ) 1979
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We Won’t Do It without the Rose, Because We Can No Longer Think, offset1972
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5 Kingdoms, 2015 Candice2/5,etching2AP Lin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.640 02 03 04 05 06 09
Herbarium Perrine, 2007-2011
super-8 mm film, transferred to highdefinition digital media, colour, silent 3.11 minutes
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hand-printed acrylic wash, aquatint, à la poupée photogravure, with hand-applied letterpress labels and stamps in seven parts, plus bleach-stained portfolio a P private6/7 collection BC 002.632
On Tropical Nature, 1991 mixed
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Hormonal Fog, 2016-present
Lin and François Ghebaldy Gallery, Los Angeles photo: Jeff McLane BC 002.641
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hacked fog machine, dried herbs, herbal tincture, wood, plastic and miscellaneous CandiceahardwareP4/4Lin and François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles BC 002.648 14
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The Roots of Industry, 2016 CandiceAPetching1/2
super-8 film, transferred to high-definition digital media, colour, silent 3.17 minutes
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Volcano, 1979
© The Estate of Ana Mendieta, LLC. Galerie Lelong & Co. Licensed by Artists Rights Society ( a RS) , New York
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Burial Pyramid, 1974
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(Collaboration with p s ta FF ) Concord (M a ) 1979
OVERVIEW ROOM III WITH WORK BY CANDICE LIN AND MARK DION
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Linandicec(detail)2020SarcophagusFuture
Linandicec(detail)2020SarcophagusFuture
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The explorer and the naturalist make sense of the dangerous and mysterious world around them through the process of naming, destroying some of the otherness and the exoticness. […] The naturalist and the explorer make sense out of chaotic otherness by containing it in an established framework. – Mark Dion, 1991
Ik kan me geen politieker gebied voorstellen dan de geschiedenis van de voorstelling van de natuur. Werken die proberen een begrip te kweken van de intellectuele weg die we hebben afgelegd en die heeft geleid tot onze suïcidale relatie met onze eigen planeet, zijn naar mijn idee zeer politiek. – Mark Dion,-2017
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m ark d ion – On Tropical Nature 1991 (detail)
I cannot imagine a field more political than the history of the representation of nature. Works which attempt to articulate an understanding of the intellectual path we have travelled which has led to our suicidal relationship to our own planet, I think are very political. – Mark Dion, 2013-2017
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During the past 10 years my work, as a dialogue between nature and the mythical female body, has evolved dialectically in response to diverse landscapes as an emotional, sexual, biological affirmation of being. […] My art is grounded on the primordial accumulations, the unconscious urges that animate the world, not in an attempt to redeem the past, but rather in confrontation with the void, the orphanhood, the unbaptized earth of the beginning, the time that from within the earth looks upon us. – Ana Mendieta, 1984
OVERVIEW ROOM III AND IV WITH WORK BY MARK DION, ANA MENDIETA, LOIS WEINBERGER AND CANDICE LIN (IN COLLABORATION
COLLABORATION WITH P STAFF)
Weeds – a category of plants that is uniquely ideologically charged – have been defined as ‘a plant in the wrong place’, a definition that leaves room for countless personal and cultural interpretations. Other characterizations emphasize the toxicity of weeds, their lack of a practical use or their invasive nature.
A central concept in the oeuvre of Lois Weinberger is ‘the ruderal’, literally the growth of plants on disturbed lands. The self-appointed ‘green man’ Weinberger harbours a preference for ‘weeds’ and other less-loved, ‘mentally repressed’ flora, which he grows in gardens in Berlin, Vienna and Gars am Kamp. The deeply committed Weinberger feels equally connected with social outcasts. During Documenta X in 1997, he plants one of the railway tracks at Kassel Station with neophytes from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe – the areas of origin of migrant communities in Kassel. In Walking, his map of a fictional landscape, Weinberger combines plant names with Freudian terminology from Lévi-Strauss’ publication
Weeds
Myth and Meaning ichaemLLandy(detail)2002Nourishment
In the 1990s, Michael Landy establishes himself as one of the leading Young British Artists when he destroys all of his personal belongings. Immediately after this, he undertakes a series of life-sized etchings of various types of weeds that he finds on the streets of London and which he keeps alive. Landy calls this series ‘Nourishment’ and it revolves around resistance, perseverance and survival in harsh conditions. ‘These street flowers need very little soil or nourishment to prosper; they can survive the most hostile urban landscape, by being highly adaptable to their surroundings’, according to Landy.
Poet and visual artist Ian Hamilton Finlay is known for his magnum opus, the Little Sparta garden in Stonypath, Lanarkshire in Scotland, where he combines landscape elements with concrete poetry, neoclassical architecture and follies, structures that serve purely decorative or whimsical purposes. Another major work graces the sculpture garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum: Sacred Grove, which honours the protagonists of the French Revolution and elevates the existing trees to a pantheon of columns. Provocateur Finlay equates pristine ‘wild’ nature with a state of fascism; he considers the cultivated landscapes of the eighteenth century to be the pinnacle of culture.
The work of Anaïs Tondeur is often created in close collaboration with scientists. Her Chernobyl Herbarium has been a work-in-progress since 2011. It is a series of rayographs – direct prints on photosensitive paper without the use of a camera – of radioactive plants from the zone declared inaccessible around the damaged nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The shadowy, ethereal herbarium currently comprises 36 sheets: one print for every year since reactor 4 exploded on 26 April 1986. The Chernobyl Herbarium is a collaboration between Tondeur and philosopher and author Michael Marder, who writes a text based on each rayograph, and bio-geneticist Martin Hajduch, who analyses the changes in the plants as a result of the radiation.
Nassau 1925-Edinburgh 2006
Drawing for documenta X, Kassel, 1997
Indian ink on paper Salle Principale (Paris) and Studio Lois BCWeinberger002.666
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etching on Hahnemühle paper private16/37 collection BC 002.624
ink (print) on Kröller-MüllerpaperMuseum, Otterlo
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Mullein, 2000
lithography on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
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Indian ink and colour pencil on paper Salle Principale (Paris) and Studio Lois BCWeinberger002.668
‘Of Famous Arcady Ye Are’, 1977 silkscreen on Kröller-MüllerpaperMuseum, Otterlo
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The Months, 1982
Nassau 1925-Edinburgh 2006
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lithography on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Studio5/5 Lois Weinberger and Galerie photo:KrinzingerDieter Schwerdtle
BC 002.625
What is Beyond Plants is at One with Them. documenta X, Kassel
05 i an h ami Lton Fin L ay Nassau 1925-Edinburgh 2006
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pigment print on archival paper
06 i an h ami Lton Fin L ay Nassau 1925-Edinburgh 2006
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lithography on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo KM 114.981
Apollo and Daphne (after Bernini), 1977
Nourishment, 2002
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Both the Garden Style…, 1987 lithography on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
1997. Railway Track, Neophytes from South and South-eastern Europe, 1997
After Bernini, 1987
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Königskerze, 2000
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Seven Seed Packets, 1986
Indian ink and colour pencil on paper Studio Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.663
oil-based paint marker on impregnated Studiocotton Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.659
17 a naïs tondeur Parijs 1985
Wild Cube, 1996
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Field Work, Walking, 2014
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Studio Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.664
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Area, 1991-1995
Wild Cube, 1991-2010 rib StudiosteelLois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.660
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Green Man, 2010 arcium lappa (burdock) Studio Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.661
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Etymological Plant List, 2001
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typewriter, pencil and Indian ink on paper Salle Principale (Paris) and Studio Lois BCWeinberger002.667
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Chernobyl Herbarium, 2011-ongoing Exclusion zone, Chernobyl, Ukraine Radiation level: 1.7 ms/ hour
Zittergras, 2001 Briza, 2001
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Indian ink and water colour on paper
Indian ink and water colour on paper Studio Lois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.665
in collaboration with philosopher Michael Marder and bio-geneticist Martin Hajduch rayograms and pigment print on R aG collectionpaper artist BC 002.649
– Ian Hamilton Finlay
The dull necessity of weeding arises, because every healthy plant is a racist and an imperialist; every daisy (even) wishes to establish for itself an Empire on which the sun never sets.
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OVERVIEW ROOM IV WITH WORK BY LOIS WEINBERGER
Unthinkable and unrepresentable as [the event of Chernobyl] is, we insist on the need to reflect upon, signify, and symbolize it, taking stock of the consciousness it fragmented and, perhaps, cultivating another, more environmentally attuned way of living. […] the trauma of Chernobyl has not been worked through in the absence of a consciousness appropriate to the task of representing it. Nuclear power production in Europe and around the world has not been halted, and some even dare to claim that it is safer and more environmentally sound than that obtained by burning fossil fuels. A fundamental rethinking of the meaning of energy and its procurement is yet to take place against the dual backdrop of Chernobyl (and now Fukushima) and human-induced climate change. – Michael Marder and Anaïs Tondeur,
2016
OVERVIEW ROOM IV WITH WORK BY ANAÏS TONDEUR AND LOIS WEINBERGER
WeinbergerLois1997KasselXdocumentaThem.withOneatisPlantsBeyondisWhat
1994
The wrath against sandwort and stinging nettle is nourished by the premonition that these will grow on our graves. – Lois Weinberger, Summer
OVERVIEW ROOM IV WITH WORK BY LOIS WEINBERGER
The definition is the weed’s cultural story. How and why and where we classify plants as undesirable is part of the story of our ceaseless attempts to draw boundaries between nature and culture, wildness and domestication. […] Weeds vividly demonstrate that natural life –and the course of evolution itself – refuse to be constrained by our cultural concepts. In so doing they make us look closely at the very idea of a divided creation. – Richard Mabey, Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants, 2010
WeinbergerLois2014WalkingWorkField
Throughout his life, Joseph Beuys remained interested in the healing and regenerative power of plants, closely related to his interest in Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy and the biodynamic farming method that Steiner developed. In 1965, Beuys wrote a handy list with the Latin names of medicinal plants. A similar list from 1979 catalogues the plant species that have the ability to regenerate fallow fields, as ‘green fertilizers’. The project 7000 Eichen in Kassel, for which Beuys has 7000 trees planted in the heavily bombed city, is considered his ultimate ‘social sculpture’. 7000 Eichen is often interpreted as an ecological project, but it is strongly anthropocentric in character: above all, it is a symbol for the revitalization of human society. The horror vacui drawing Feld is based on the vegetable garden that Beuys laid out at his country house in Nederweert in the Netherlands.
Regeneration en ‘green remediation’
beuysosephJ1979RegenerationzurAckereinsaat
Plants play a crucial role in the stability of ecosystems – they are even able to regulate temperature and humidity. Various artists reflect on the ability of plants to cleanse and give new life to their environment.
Otobong Nkanga holds a deep interest in the ecological relationship between people and the land they inhabit. Central to the installation that Nkanga has created for Botanischer Wahnsinn is a birch that was blown down during a recent spring storm, just a stone’s throw from the museum. The monumental ‘mother tree’ is connected, via an ‘umbilical cord’ or ‘circulatory system’ of hand-knotted ropes, to blown-glass spheres from Murano. These serve as air-conditioned terrariums with soil and plants, including a young birch. The installation with its promise of healing and regeneration acts as a companion piece to the tapestry Double Plot, which tells the story of the exploitation of nature through mining. The scars that this activity leaves on the landscape are reflected in the lines in the tapestry, which evoke associations with geographical boundaries, tree roots, veins of precious ores and veins in the human body.
While Beuys once conceived (unrealized) plans to clean up the heavily polluted floodplains of Hamburg by planting trees, it is Mel Chin who achieved the pioneering role with his successful project Revival Field. Out of the desire to generate actual ecological recovery as an artist, he starts collaborating with scientist Rufus Chaney, who already published a paper in 1983 on the so-called hyperaccumulator plants, which can absorb high concentrations of heavy metals from industrially polluted soils with their root systems. Together they set up artistic-scientific testing stations in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and the Netherlands. The circular part of the stations is planted with hyperaccumulators and functions as the test area, the unplanted square is the control area. This practice of ‘green remediation’ – cleaning polluted soils with the help of plants – would go on to make enormously strides.
redwood, glass, zinc, copper, lead, aluminium and stainless steel private67/96 collection
Ohne Titel, 1965 Untitled, 1965
09 otobong n kanga Kano 1974
tapestry: woven textile (viscose bast, polyester, bio cotton, cashwool, acryl) and photography (5 inktjet prints on laser cut dibond BCcollectionplates)artist002.678
02 m e L c hin
05 Joseph b euys
04 Joseph b euys
handmade ropes, 3 Murano glass spheres, tree trunk, metal connectors, clay granules, lava stones, activated carbon, soil and BCcollectionplantsartist002.633 03 04 05 06 07 08
room v r egeneration en ‘green remediation’ 01 02
Houston 1951
Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986
Revival Ramp, 1996 privateaetchingP3/4 collection BC 002.657
Houston 1951
Revival Field Maquette, the Netherlands, 1992
Griselinia leaf, pencil and copper oxide on white BCprivatecardboardcollection002.654
06 Joseph b euys
BC 002.656
mixed BCprivatemediacollection002.655
pencil and stamp on white paper private collection
Ackereinsaat zur Regeneration, 1979 Field Seed for Regeneration, 1979
Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986 Feld, 1983 Field, 1983 pencil on white paper private collection BC 002.653
Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986
BC 002.650
01 m e L c hin
7000 Eichen, 1982
Revival Field 90-93 Documentation (Plot Marker No. 67), 1993
Alignment, 2022
Griselinia Littoralis, 1984
Double Plot, 2018
07 Joseph b euys
Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986
7000 Oak Trees, 1982
08 Joseph b euys
Houston 1951
10 otobong n kanga Kano 1974
Krefeld 1921-Düsseldorf 1986
03 m e L c hin
pencil on light brown cardboard private collection
BC 002.652
pencil and stamp on white paper private collection BC 002.651
09 10
OVERVIEW ROOM V WITH WORK BY OTOBONG NKANGA AND MEL CHIN
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Trees are not important in order to maintain life on earth. No, trees are important to save the human soul. A natural health-food type of ecology is of no real interest. The world can sink. This earth can go to pieces. But if this earth falls apart in the state it is now, the human soul is in danger. The only thing that is worth elevating is the human soul. – Joseph Beuys, 1984
kangatobongon2018PlotDouble2022Alignment
kangatobongon(detail)2022Alignment
kangatobongon(detail)2018PlotDouble
Lois Weinberger Stams 1947-Wenen 2020 Portable Garden, 1994-2021 immigrant bags, soil, spontaneous StudiovegetationLois Weinberger and Galerie BCKrinzinger002.626 out S ide
Caroline de Lint, Den Haag
Rachelle van den Broek, Project coordinator Kröller-Müller Museum
t ext Roel Arkesteijn
c oordination and rea L ization
Kunst de Domijnen, Sittard François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles Galerie Krinzinger, Wenen Galerie Lelong, New York Salle Principale, Parijs and those who wish to remain anonymous
m ain bene Factors
Mike HuubRitchieStegeman
Mike HuubRitchieStegeman
g raphic design
L enders Gemma Anderson Lili MuseumStudioAnaïsOtobongCandiceFischerLinNkangaTondeurLoisWeinbergerHedendaagse
trans L ation
and rea L ization
cPublicationoordination
L ettering
Idem Dito, Arnhem
Saiid Smale
gExhibitionuestcurator
trans L ation
g raphic design exhibition
Jannet de Goede, Head of Exhibitions Kröller-Müller Museum
photography Marjon Gemmeke
Roel Arkesteijn
The copyright of works by visual artists affiliated with a CI s AC organization is arranged with Pictoright in Amsterdam. © c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2022
Jannet de Goede, Head of Exhibitions Kröller-Müller Museum Staff Kröller-Müller Museum
