Via Detour – Ueber Umwege / EN
Curated by Maria Hinze and Peter Becker
Treehouse Hotel „Robins Nest“ 2022, Witzenhausen close to Kassel
An Exhibition Project, Text by Laura Helena Wurth
Deep in the woods between Göttingen and Kassel is where you will find „Robins Nest“, the treehouse hotel. Five treehouses of different sizes float between the treetops right around the corner from the enchanted Berlepsch Castle. It’s a half-hour journey from Kassel before you stand in the middle of the forest, feeling that you have left the city far behind. On the occasion of documenta 15, the treehouse hotel and the forest around it will be shown in a new light through artistic interventions. Peter Becker – project initiator of “Via Detour” founder of „Robins Nest” and art collector – is building upon the legacy of his grandfather who founded one of the earliest recycling centers in Germany. There, tons of glass, plastic and cardboard arrive daily to be prepared for recycling. This process relates directly to the inspiration behind the artistic interventions into „Robin’s Nest“ and the surrounding forest. Sustainability and recycling drive this project’s conception and implementation as well as being central to its artistic themes. Maria Hinze, the abstract painter co-curating this project, invited artists from North America and Europe who work with a variety of approaches, technologies and materials. Some of them are sculptors, others paint or work performatively; all of them use nature as their setting, some use analog film material and techniques, others have one foot on the forest floor and the other in digital space. What they all have in common is that sound and music play a dominant role in their work. They will live at „Robins Nest“ for a week, developing works together for display in the treehouse hotel and its surroundings. The recycling center provides much of the material for the artistic works. Thus, the unwanted remnants of civilization meet a secluded, eco-concerned way of life amongst the trees of the Sandwald forest. Maria Hinze and the also involved Christian Jankowski represent two formal poles of the project – she as an abstract painter, he as a conceptual artist. This unusual exhibition unfolds between these two poles. In today`s world, the contradiction between human consumption and environmental concern resists resolution. This is precisely why they can and should be wielded productively. It is not only a matter of producing works of art from recycled material, but also of bringing their creation process into a cycle: Working with the invited artists, conceptual artist Christian Jankowski will realize one of his works on site, applying his method of building on the interaction among different groups. In terms of Jankowski’s film, the participants fluidly switch between their roles as musicians, independent artists and movie protagonists. In addition to Jankowski’s conceptual work, another film will be produced during this collaborative residency. Peter Becker and Maria Hinze will produce what is set to become both a contemporary document and work of art, moving between the individuals and the larger cycle of the forest as an ecosystem and the place of humans within it.
What is presented here is a circular economy of art that uses everything; one that never stops developing.
Laura Helena Wurth