Controversial art project "For Forest": Away in the green

The color green, it belongs to the football stadium as the round into the square. But what if the green is not a carefully cultivated artificial turf - but a mixed forest of outgrown and tall trees of the most beautiful European species? That there is hardly any more in the wild?

For the installation "For Forest", 299 trees - 14 meters high, up to 40 years old - will be set up on the lawn of the Wörthersee Stadium Klagenfurt from 8th September to 27th October. A little bit of madness probably belongs to such an action, which wants to be "Austria's largest art project in public space in 2019".

Initiator of the project is the Basel cultural mediator Klaus Littmann. He studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf near Beuys, who had 7000 oaks planted in Kassel at Documenta 1982 under the slogan "Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung".

However, Littmann's new project is much more inspired by a work by the Austrian artist Max Peintner: "The uninterrupted attraction of nature" is the colorized pencil drawing of 1970/71 - it is also the subtitle of "For Forest".

Max Peintner / Klaus Littmann

"The unbroken attraction of nature" by Max Peintner, colored by Littmann

Peintner, born 1937 in Hall in Tirol, is known for his irreal and surreal, futuristic and fantastic drawings, they deal with the destruction of the environment and nature and question the perception of civilization critically. He draws what everyone knows. But it is only in a seemingly absurd combination that his scenarios raise whole complexes of questions. What if a natural mixed forest will once be of the highest attraction because it only exists as an exhibit? Like today a rare animal in the zoo?

Breath, Austria!

"The trees should root sustainability aspects in the brain of the viewer," says Littmann, who prepared the project for six years. The criticism from ranks of the opponents that probably no tax money should be wasted, countered the Swiss so: "My forest is privately funded, with the support of companies, donors, donors." Large-scale cultural projects often have a hard time, and controversies seem preprogrammed, especially in times of right-wing populism. "You can not be against the forest," Littmann believes.

In fact, the forest has long been at the center of art and culture. Already in 2015, the crowds at the Milan World's Fair crowded through a pavilion that was not really one: For Austria, "breathe.austria" had created a forest with water curtain from the aspect of air quality, in which heated visitors cooled off enthusiastically.

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In garden-crazy England, the press recently celebrated a green zone with a stream and bridge designed by the Duchess of Cambridge as part of the Chelsea Flower Show. This put the design in the context of physical and mental health.

However, part of the controversy surrounding "For Forest" has nothing to do with the project's artistic merits: Carinthian football club Wolfsberger AC qualified for the Europa League last season and only the Wörthersee Stadium complies with international requirements the club needs to play. But the contract between Littmann and city was already signed in 2017, the WAC must now move to the remote Graz.

A little Fitzcarraldo

Headwind came from the FPÖ, even personal insults. In the heated debate, remarks such as "son of a bitch!" and "hang the artist on the next tree!", Also called for vandalism at the stadium trees. Klagenfurt's Mayor Maria-Luise Mathiaschitz of the SPÖ sees "For Forest" as "a unique opportunity to present Klagenfurt as a cosmopolitan city".

Emmanuel Fradin

Klaus Littmann: Original nature transplanted into an urban fun arena

Littmann's stories about the "For Forest" project are reminiscent of Werner Herzog's film "Fitzcarraldo", in which a manic Klaus Kinski pulls a ship across the mountain to build an opera in the middle of the Amazon jungle. But while the film character Fitzcarraldo wants to implement a piece of high culture in an originally-chaotic nature, the message in the Klagenfurt project has exactly the opposite: in the meantime, the - albeit staged - forest itself is the rare good. He stands as Memento Mori for original nature in the middle of an urban fun arena of today's industrial age.

From Sunday it is now to commit, the mixed forest in the 30,000 people Wörthersee Stadium. With free admission, visitors can admire the oeuvre during the day and at night under floodlight, accompanied by a cultural program. On the program of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt: the opera "Tannhäuser" and the premiere of the play "Please do not go to the stadium".

For the realization own tree scouts, led by landscape architect Enzo Enea, sought out the schooled plants in European tree nurseries, because: "Such trees could not be found in height and age in Austria," says Littmann. He hopes for his "trees of life" to a similar echo, as it once caused the "Wrapped Trees" of Christ.

And because the question of sustainability is of course imminent: After that, the artificial forest is transplanted into an area close to the city and, so to speak, reintroduced.

For Forest, from 8.9. until 27.10.2019 in the Wörthersee Stadium Klagenfurt.