Naturally Hypernatural
together with the School of Visual Arts, NYC
Nature is booming. If one looks at the latest trends in contemporary art or even at the major international art events that have dominated the last two years (documenta, Biennale, Ars Electronica), an "appearance" shows a dominance of "nature" in a striking way; equally, however, its manifestations are radically new. And this is interesting, because a connection of "nature" and "art" seems to be nothing new. All the more so in the 20th century, which is dominated in many ways by artistic practices, techniques, strategies, materials that use nature.
As a material - such as Land Art or as an ecological aesthetic movement, such as Eco Art. This has also been accompanied by a variety of art theoretical and philosophical considerations. One outstanding attempt, for example, was to develop a philosophy as an ecology of nature. Prominent thinker here is the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. In view of this coexistence of "nature" and "art", it is not surprising that this renaissance has not gone unnoticed by the latest art history, cultural theory, history of science and architecture. Artistic phenomena, such as those shown at the last documenta, are then quickly placed in a context that is assigned to land art or ecologigal art, for example. For it is not only that with such a specification or localization in the art history of the 20th century, the new works of art are simply placed in a "grand recit", which must necessarily omit their specifics and precisely what is "new", at present it is precisely not about nature as a material or object of art. For if the material also equals art, there is - logically - no more distinction between nature and art. But where would art be then, and where is nature? So something is clearly 'different' at present, because: Long-traditional genres of representations of nature in art - such as the landscape painting, the idyll, land art, the environment, etc. - do appear in art, but at the moment of their appearance they elude the familiar appearance. Architects and artists develop entirely new landscapes, with completely unexpected, new materials, and thus resolutely raise a voice in thinking around sustainability debates in ecology; rather, sustainability is resolutely rethought from this perspective, and the "environment" takes on a new dimension in terms of how it would be thought. "Nature" as a topos allows the "appearance" of an entirely new type of artist, in which the scientist and the artist do not mix out of pure ambition for the other field, but in which the artist, in terms of his training, is always already a scientist and vice versa. And what change has taken place when an animal is no longer in art - for example, as the object of a representation or part of a work of art - but is the work of art? The treatment of "nature" in contemporary art allows us to ask in a completely new way what "life" is all about, and can thus pose the art-historical question again: how much "life" does a still life, for instance, carry? And above all: how do artificiality and naturalness actually relate to each other? What about the traditional symbolism of animals and plants in contemporary art? What is the content of the magical, for example of the fairy tale, and how are these worlds created in contemporary art? How can these phenomena of nature in art be thought of historically beyond a systematic and interdisciplinary view for such art? And how does such "nature" in art change art and its theory?
Project Management:
Sabine Flach, Department of Arts and Musicology, University of Graz.
Cooperation partners and collaborators:
Suzanne Anker, SVA Fine Arts Department, New York
Events:
International Conference "Naturally Hypernatural I: Concepts of Nature," Graz, June 13-15, 2014 Conference synopsis: Suzanne Anker and Sabine Flach.
International Conference "Naturally Hypernatural II: Visions of Nature", New York, November 14-16, 2014 Conference synopsis: Suzanne Anker and Sabine Flach
International Conference "Naturally Hypernatural III: Hypernatural Landscapes in the Anthropocene," Graz, June 3, 2015 Conference Exposé: Sabine Flach and Gary Sherman.
Young Scientists Conference "My goal is the maintenance of indifference", Graz, November 25, 2016.
International Conference "Naturally Hypernatural IV: "The Hothouse Archives: Plants, Pods and Panama Red," New York, November 16-18, 2018 Conference synopsis: Suzanne Anker and Sabine Flach
International Conference "Naturally Hypernatural V - Questioning the Non-Human Other," Graz, October 17-19, 2019 Conference synopsis: Anne-Grit Becker and Karoline Walter
Publications:
Suzanne Anker / Sabine Flach (eds.): Naturally Hypernatural I: Concepts of Nature, Peter Lang, 2016.
Antennae Issue 33: Naturally Hypernatural II: Visions of Nature, Fall 2015
Antennae Issue 34: Naturally Hypernatural II: Visions of Nature, Winter 2015