Water: A Vast Outdoor Exhibition
Amiel Grumberg
For a long time, open-air contemporary
art exhibitions have been a staple of European cultural tourism. It’s a
tried and true method that attracts not only the organizers but also a mass of
summertime visitors. Choose a picturesque walk with a park, gardens in bloom,
and throw in a castle if need be. Be sure to scatter a few monumental works around,
so as to show the walk at its most pleasurable. An advertising campaign and some
published material will insure the success of the project and will mark the occasion
on the summer events calendar. Some go for the ‘fun’ option of huge,
imposing adult-proof sculptures on which children can climb and play. Others
will go for the noble option, in the Nth attempt at democratizing contemporary
art.
Everyone will appear satisfied with the
arrangements. Governments and municipalities can be proud of their artistic patronage,
and the public will be especially delighted to benefit from a few days of rest
—art or no art. But the exhibition Water, running until November at the
Amsterdamse Waterlingduinen in Haarlem has what it takes to shift views on the
so-called summer sculpture walk. The setting is overwhelmingly idyllic and devoid
of any tourist presence due to its hyper-protected standing. This natural reserve
is the production and cleaning point for all the water that enters Amsterdam.
Considered as the quietest place in Holland, it is spoken about with discretion.
Its appearance in any local or foreign tourist guide is avoided. So Water long
remained confidential, to the delight of local joggers and the odd Sunday stroller
taking advantage of this extraordinarily peaceful haven. To convince the park
authorities of the underlying good of the project took quite some time for the
three organizers, who had to deal with a daunting list of conditions. The coinciding
of the chosen topic with the park’s fiftieth birthday finally dissolved
the remaining doubts and the co-operation between the park technicians and the
artists appears to have been particularly fruitful.
Based on the theme of water, Japan’s
Toshikatsu Endo, Beninese Meschac Gaba, and Holland’s Wapke Feenstra were
invited to take possession of the site and to make their mark. Here are no monuments,
nor any well-worn paths. Armed only with a simple map, the visitor is to venture
forth and discover the works of the three artists hidden in this jewelry box
of nature. Unlike the average open air walk, nothing here is visually imposing.
The visitor could pass by oblivious to the artist, simply observing the changing
landscape and meeting with a surprising array of fauna. Along the path, Wepke
Feenstra’s Bathers form a discrete red line. On concrete plates inserted
into the ground, the artist has traced contours of some famous bathers taken
from paintings by some of the modern masters. They are only apparent to the visitor
whilst spouting water. Playing on the visible and invisible, Wepke Feenstra establishes
a dialogue with the original open-air artists at the end of the 19th century
and lets history run its course through nature. The fountains of Toshikatsu Endo
were produced in an even more discrete manner and are integrated so well in the
landscape that they remain invisible even to the locals. Most observers will
have gathered that the shape of the miniature geysers from which they are inspired
is not commonly found in Holland. Designed in co-operation with the landscape
designers of the park, the geysers have a way of emerging from the ground creating
a somewhat ‘fairy-like’ atmosphere. Dug into isolated zones, they form
real places of meditation, and evoke the quasi-spiritual relation with nature
that one finds in the majority of eastern philosophies.
Further along the path Meschac Gaba’s village
surprises the walker who finds himself or herself face to face with peculiar
vestiges of a civilization in contrast to this pristine setting. Tens of wooden
out-houses planted in a clearing refer to the ancient Stone-Hengesque sites of
the Menhirs, and to animist rituals. Approaching visitors discover office water-coolers
built into the out-houses and can help themselves to some refreshment. Each water
cooler is decorated with Dutch water landscapes, adding a new dimension to the
course of the exhibition. By combining ancestral structures with common, daily
objects, Meschac Gaba has skillfully played on the pretenses of the Dutch landscape-
an erudite mixture of natural and artificial.
Water is a three hour walk dotted with
scores of works; you won’t find all of them. It is a modest and refreshing
environmental exhibition, and an ideal respite for the body and the soul.
