The Unending Attraction of Nature

author Klaus Littmann
project For Forest – The Unending Attraction of Nature, Wörthersee Stadium, Klagenfurt, Austria
written by Ana Bedenko,  Frano Petar Zovko
 
 


In September this year, we were invited to the opening of the installation titled For Forest – The Unending Attraction of Nature (Die ungebrochene Anziehungskraft der Natur), an artistic project that gives an excellent insight into the mechanisms of the contemporary art scene, especially to those coming from a milieu where the artistic production is primarily dependent on the increasingly more modest state funding, while the high budget projects are reserved for the classics of global art history. The stadium located near Klagenfurt hosted a very specific and technically and logistically ambitious project by Swiss artist Klaus Littmann, made in partnership with many collaborators. Klaus Littmann, a former student of Joseph Beuys, has been producing large public installations within his organization Littmann Culture Projects, with the aim of activating the relation between the public space and the contemporary art sphere. The project is inspired by a drawing of the same title, Die ungebrochene Anziehungskraft der Natur, made in the beginning of the ‘70s by Austrian artist Max Peintner. Littmann uses Peintner’s drawing as a template and translates it literally into another medium. Within the stadium arena he thus erects a forest, and so gives the drawing a physical and sensorial form. In this manner, the stadium with capacity of 30 000 visitors should become a place of reflection and oasis of tranquillity and greenery. The installation was open to visitors from 9 September to 27 October 2019. The entry was free of charge, and the visitors were able to see Littmann’s forest from early morning to late evening in order to experience this hybrid artificial and natural ambience in various conditions.