Joseph Beuys (1921-86) a German artist and philosopher has an exhibition of a project which he dedicated the latter part of his life to showing at the Caixa Girona Fontana d'Or gallery. While trying to re-establish man's origins and restoring their bond with nature, he was one of the original thinkers behind what would now be called the environmental movement. Various tree planting projects around the world were meant to inspire a global mission to effect environmental and social change which we could usefully pick up again today.
Through a series of photographs we follow these projects, the first in 1980 on an island in the Seychelles where he planted two protected species of coconut trees to illustrate the alignment of man's intelligence with nature. This symbolic recreation of paradise was followed by the planting of 7,000 trees of endangered species in Bolognano, Italy from 1982-84 and finally his most ambitious project was for the Kassel art fair which took 5 years and again involved the planting of 7,000 oak trees, each tree accompanied by a stone obelix which was meant to seal his pact with nature.
The person who claimed "every man is a potential artist" was a true rebel and original thinker that we are busy re-evaluating and finding plenty of modern day relevance to his ideas on art and nature.
Posted via email from gironaJ
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