MAKING NATURE

Nature moved into Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center

Perfume for trees, birdhouses in bright plexiglass and a crawling underwood of long-legged insects. Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, presented itself as an artificial Paradise in the middle of Copenhagen.

As technology makes its impact on modern life, the relationship between man and nature is undergoing significant changes. Nature is no longer the mysterious creator of man and the guarantee of originality, but increasingly something which has instead been created by man.

From the genetic reconstruction of the body to the global suburbs, we are slowly but surely replacing real nature with an artificial one. At home we place potted plants in our urban flats, domesticate wild animals and comb our front garden. Making Nature showed what 22 international artists had to say about all this. They cultivated Mother Earth with a variety of tools from video and installations to sculptures and drawings.

But You shouldn't expect to see landscape paintings, marine paintings or portraits. There were, however, echoes of 1960‘s manifestations such as Land Art, Arte Povera and Deutsche Naturkunst a la Joseph Beuys, and virtual reality enabled the spectator to tread new technological paths.

At the turn of the 20th century a number of artists presented constructive suggestions on how to halt the destruction of nature. Others removed the plants to the artificial gallery space, while others again developed a longing for nature as something spiritual and sublime, inspired by Far Eastern philosophies, shamanism and romantic cults. Some addressed the natural sciences from a decidedly critical angle.

Art became a barometer on which to read the vulnerable state of nature - and thus of man himself.

Making Nature was curated by Dieter Buchhart (Vienna, Austria), Petra Schroeck (Berlin, Germany) and curatorial assistant Anna Karina Hofbauer (Copenhagen/Vienna).

MAKING NATURE
Kuratoren: Dieter Buchhart, Petra Schroeck, Anna Karina Hofbauer

Künstler: Ingvil Aarbakke, Volker Andresen, Raphael Barth, Aleksandar Battista Illic, Dieter Buchhart, Mark Dion, Gloria Friedmann, Henrik Håkansson, Toni Kay, Rikke Luther, Victorine Mueller, Olaf Nicolai, Kristin Reynisdottir, Igor Sacharow-Ross, Wilhelm Scherübl, Günther Selichar, Loredana Selichar, John Sorvin, Stefan Thater, Mike Tyler, Lois Weinberger, Cecilia Wendt