kunstwegen
kunstwegen is a fascinating project in many ways. One of the largest open-air museums in Europe has been completed in Vechtetal, the German-Dutch border area between Nordhorn and Zwolle. Roland Nachtigäller and Martin Köttering have extended a stock of over 50 artworks by 15 new projects over the past two years, forming a network of international artists and an extensive cultural space, bringing the landscape, nature, art and history to life in an experiential fashion. The contextualisation of art and landscape and the interlinking of art and history provide the main parameters for the kunstwegen project. The central issue is the penetration and interlinking of the geographic, historic and cultural topography. Decoration is never an issue, nor surface or the random. All of the projects have a very specific relationship: to the wonderful landscape of heath, fen, open grassland and water, and to the history of the area. Like the project by Fischli/Weiss, which alludes to the fact that there was a concentration camp in Bathorn during the Third Reich with over 170,000 prisoners. Fischli/Weiss laid out a one and a half kilometre long wooden catwalk through the difficult terrain of the moor. In the Black Garden by Jenny Holzer black-leafed and black flowering plants grow which remind one of war and persecution, and the views in Turf Cupola by Ann-Sofi Sidén are conveyed from a tower standing on the foundations of what was once a watch-tower. The museum is best visited on bicycle, from where the view of more recent art history in public space is relaxed, and all too exemplary and comprehensible.
web: http://www.kunstwegen.org
Curator: Brigitte Huck
kunstwegen is a fascinating project in many ways. One of the largest open-air museums in Europe has been completed in Vechtetal, the German-Dutch border area between Nordhorn and Zwolle. Roland Nachtigäller and Martin Köttering have extended a stock of over 50 artworks by 15 new projects over the past two years, forming a network of international artists and an extensive cultural space, bringing the landscape, nature, art and history to life in an experiential fashion. The contextualisation of art and landscape and the interlinking of art and history provide the main parameters for the kunstwegen project. The central issue is the penetration and interlinking of the geographic, historic and cultural topography. Decoration is never an issue, nor surface or the random. All of the projects have a very specific relationship: to the wonderful landscape of heath, fen, open grassland and water, and to the history of the area. Like the project by Fischli/Weiss, which alludes to the fact that there was a concentration camp in Bathorn during the Third Reich with over 170,000 prisoners. Fischli/Weiss laid out a one and a half kilometre long wooden catwalk through the difficult terrain of the moor. In the Black Garden by Jenny Holzer black-leafed and black flowering plants grow which remind one of war and persecution, and the views in Turf Cupola by Ann-Sofi Sidén are conveyed from a tower standing on the foundations of what was once a watch-tower. The museum is best visited on bicycle, from where the view of more recent art history in public space is relaxed, and all too exemplary and comprehensible.
web: http://www.kunstwegen.org
Curator: Brigitte Huck