CHRIS FREMANTLE

Köln Skulpturen Park makes evident several key moves used by sculptors creating outdoor works

• Reflection – we have an Anish Kapoor mirrored disc, a Dan Graham pavilion and a Tom Burr work of black reflective panels

• Fairy tales – two of the pieces added to the collection recently (video here) evoke traditions and archetypes Mary Bauermeister’s arrangement of tree stump seats into a space for a different way of spending time in nature and Guan Xaio’s Old Eggs and the Catcher which seems to allude to folk stories

• Repurposing – Dane Mitchell’s Post Hoc, two fir tree mobile phone masts, take a piece of infrastructure and repurpose it to tell a different story, in this case of loss.

• Buildings – the focal point of the park is Suo Fujimoto‘s white concrete structure. The ‘building’ surrounds a tree. The act of looking in and looking out both create frames with which to appreciate the leafy environment. Of course, much like the Farnsworth House, you need a certain level of privilege to appreciate the views without being concerned about the functionality of the building.

Mies van der Röhe said

When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside. More of Nature is thus expressed – it becomes part of a greater whole.

Fujimoto’s piece is the sculptural version, framing and organising nature. It even has works installed in and on it.

Lois Weinberger‘s intervention made a few years ago is one of the more radical ‘pieces’. Very much in contrast with the formality of much of the work (di Suvero, even Fischli and Weiss), his trench, in reality a bulldozer driven in a straight line for 100m cutting through paths and leaving spoil heap at the end of the line, offers a different aesthetic. Related to Robert Smithson’s various experiments with entropic processes, and with Gordon Matta-Clark’s cuts, but this is negentropic – it is focused by emergence, its aesthetic is what happens when we stop controlling nature. Its counterpoint is Karin Sander‘s piece of plastic grass inserted into the equally managed grass.

The curatorial approach is in some respects more radical than some of the artists’ works. As I understand it each new exhibition, comprising some temporary works and some new permanent installations, is focused by a previous work. This year’s exhibition refers back to the Weinberger’s piece. This iterative accumulative approach forms a nice counterpoint to novelty as a curatorial approach.