We watch the “race for deforestation” of tropical forests in the Amazon – from afar, powerless. We keep abreast of initiatives to preserve biodiversity or read about urban gardening projects: small, local alternatives resist globally exploitative food production. Against the backdrop of this cultural situation, as a geopolitical statement or as a contribution to the now old-fashioned “conservation of nature”, the “Arena for a Tree” is currently anchored in the courtyard of the Swiss National Museum. A memorial to the destruction of nature by man and at the same time a symbolic visual appeal to all of us not to remain in lamentation, but to finally take action.
The forest as an exhibition object: what began 30 years ago as a thought experiment, Klaus Littmann implemented in 2019 in Klagenfurt’s Wörthersee Stadium as a temporary art intervention “FOR FOREST – The unending attraction of nature” with 299 trees to public effect. In spring 2021, the thematic continuation followed in cooperation with the Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger and the exhibition “Tree Connections” as well as the walk-in art intervention “Arena for a Tree” in the middle of the Münsterplatz in Basel and now currently until 8.5.22 in the context of the exhibition “In the Forest. A Cultural History” in the courtyard of the Landesmuseum Zurich.
ARTE – Klaus Littmann – For Forest , The Unending Attraction of Nature, 2019 from Littmann Kulturprojekte on Vimeo.
more about ARENA FOR A TREE, Basel 2021 / Zurich 2022 / Venice 2024
