Forest Art

Estella Burga, Lampadaires, 2004

Cornelia Konrads, House, 2004

Cornelia Konrads, The Gate, 2004

A quick note on another archived article (Art Contemporain en forêt de Sénart: La clé des bois, August 6) by Olivier Celik for Le Figaro (my translation):

In the 1960s, there was land art. A sculpting of nature, fully separated from traditional casting. An almost primitive quest for the origins of the marks and signs that man imprints on his environment. Five young contemporary artists are continuing this beautiful tradition of work on site in the Sénart Forest [not far south of Paris, near Evry]. An "urban forest," deep and civilized at the same time. A border between nature and the city.

The installation is called Sén'Art en Forêt, and it is sponsored by L'Office National des Forêts and Le Conseil Général de l'Essonne, until January 5, 2005. The reviewer continues:

The works are worth the visit. They require a journey, on foot, bicycle, or horseback: Estella Burga invites us to the edge of the forest, near a very busy trucking road. About twenty illuminated lamps project a new light on "this place you never mention, the fortification of the forest's identity, a marginalized place, littered with trash, a den of prostitution." [...]

Or Cornelia Konrads's house, half-buried in the middle of an artificial clearing. It's an image that really inspires meditation, like that other work of this artist, The Gate, showing a ruined portal whose stones evaporate or stand up like feathers. A perfect illusion, directly open to the imaginary, a poetic intrusion in the "individual monologue." "Are not ruins in a more magical timeframe than a fresh and new monument?" as Chateaubriand already said.

Since walking around the national forests is a summer activity in France, this is a nice way to combine that with some art.