Peace and agriculture in a pre-romantic ideal landscape

Haunch of Venison Berlin is delighted to announce a groundbreaking exhibition of video and sculptural installations that re-examine the genre of landscape.

'Peace and agriculture in a pre-romantic ideal landscape, without sublime terrors' takes its title from the painting 'The Harvesters' (1565) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder and is fitting for an exhibition that looks to explore the distinction between pre and post industrial periods of art, with a direct comment on today's landscape.

Through the work of eight selected artists the exhibition will offer different interpretations of landscape today, rather than through the traditional medium of painting: digital landscape, political and industrial landscape, romantic landscape, spiritual landscape and the imitated landscape.

Among selected works in the exhibition is a series of photographs entitled 'Liquidation', by Israeli-born British-based Ori Gersht (b.1967), set in Europe's most ancient forest surrounding Kollomyia in the Ukraine. The natural beauty and serenity of the forest is juxtaposed by the knowledge that terrible atrocities took place there in the Second World War. Gersht has a very personal connection to the area, as his own family sought brief, harsh refuge in the forest from Nazi persecution. The onlooker is in awe of such natural beauty, but the human tragedy associated with it affords the work an eerily stagnant quality.

German artist Stefanie Bühler (b.1976) has a playful approach to nature. 'Puddles' created from earth, stone and epoxy resin, is representative of her quirky interpretation of all things 'natural' and her experiments with indoor and outdoor space, where she invites the onlooker to suspend disbelief.

Mariele Neudecker, a UK-based German artist (b.1965) pushes the boundaries on the landscape genre with a nod to Romantic Symbolism. From her series entitled 'Faintly Falling Upon All The Living And The Dead' the artist 'transplants' life-size fibreglass casts of trees into a gallery setting. These almost four metre high reproductions of nature have a strong impact on the viewer and while the tree is a symbol of life, out of its assumed natural habitat it is overwhelming and more a symbol of fear.

Raised in Bulgaria, artist Ergin Cavusoglu (b. 1968) creates video installations that symbolise the complex and ever-changing events of life, people and nature. The video installation 'Fog Walking' features dramatic light and is full of movement, its painterly quality is romantic in style, reminiscent of the work of Caspar David Friedrich.

Acclaimed American artist Takeshi Murata (b.1974) can almost be described as an electronic painter. Inspired by images from films, Murata digitally reworks thousands of film stills, layering them to create a digitalised landscape where the viewer is drawn into a culminating 21st century space.

Installation and sculptural artist Via Lewandowsky (b.1963) creates unique works embedded with social comment. For this exhibition the Berlin-based artist will present works that amalgamate images of French landscapes during World War One, with X-rays of German soldiers' wounds from the same period. Captivating, rather than shocking, he demonstrates the vulnerability of inner and outer landscapes.

James Ireland (b.1977) combines minimalism with representational structures that embody modern day landscape in its simplest form. The materials he uses, such as steel, glass and plastic have no natural reference. The polished steel elements he creates stand alone as cold structures yet are filled with coloured glass which gently reflects and emanates outwards from the structure. A twig is placed nearby which contrasts with the harshness of the other materials and from a traditional subject evolves a stimulating contemporary work.

Swiss photographer Jules Spinatsch (b.1964) uses technology to create political landscape in his panoramic encapsulation of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 'Chapter 4' is from his multi-year series Temporary Discomfort created between 2001-2003, where a network-controlled webcam captured 2,144 still shots over three hours, resulting in one breath-taking six metre long panorama. The work is a statement about control over nature, politics, human perception, and human-kind.

Peace and agriculture in a pre-romantic ideal landscape, without sublime terrors

Künstler: Stefanie Bühler, Ergin Cavusoglu, Ori Gersht, James Ireland, Via Lewandowsky, Takeshi Murata, Mariele Neudecker, Jules Spinatsch