Dieter Ronte
Kunstmuseum Bonn presents “Symbols of the City – Contemporary Art from Turkey” (İm Zeichen Der Stadt – Zeitgenössiche Kunst Aus Der Türkei) from December 2001 to February 2002. The exhibition has been organized with the collaboration of Turkish/German Culture Forum based in Cologne. Not only do the artists exhibit their new projects designed for Bonn at the Kunstmuseum but they also participate through their work which contribute to the archaeology of contemporary art at the Bundeskunsthalle. Moreover, they unite these two museum buildings, and hence the “Museum Square”1. Handan Börüteçene is one of these “archaeological” artists. The artist was already exhibiting two installations at the Bundeskunsthalle: “The Stall of Master Carpenter Armenac” and “Three Zeros! Is it really only three zeros?”
Her new work is “A Work of Art for 36 Trees: In Situ”. This new work comprises of iron-framed glass crates measuring 2002 x 52 x 10 cm, the leaves of 36 trees and photos of these trees taken by the Kunstmuseum staff for a period of 48 days between 10 and 11 am from the same angle. Each of these photos (25 x 100 cm) were printed and placed in iron frames. This work constituted the artists response to the Museum Square encircled by the two buildings. The artist draws attention to what the Museum Square offers us. For these two buildings are united by a total of 36 plane trees; comprising four rows of nine trees in front of each building. Thus, each of the 36 crates with iron frames leaning against the trees house the leaves that once belonged to each of them.
In the autumn of 2001 the artist visited Bonn in order to discuss the exhibition and to think about which of her works she may propose. I remember those days well because Handan did not seem content. Two days later she came to me and said, “Dieter I know now what I want to do. The title of my work is ‘A Work of Art for 36 Trees: In Situ’.”2
This work was a great success. For the first time an artist united two buildings artistically and without causing a visual change. Handan chose a path that took Museum Square seriously and which would accentuate rather than alter it. She sought a dialogue that complemented the Museum Square by setting out from its characteristics.
The management of the Bundeskunsthalle, the proprietors of the Museum Square, which was accustomed to utilising it for the organisation of rock concerts and other music events or hosting a circus did not warm to Handan’s project in the beginning. The circus was not there when Handan began to work on her project but as she was familiar with these museums since their early days, she knew how the Museum Square was utilized and was surely aware that there would be a circus tent erected at the location before Christmas.
In the first days the square was empty, so Handan was able to pick leaves from the 36 trees like fruit. She documented all the specimens meticulously and archived the leaves of each tree separately. Therefore, as she transported the leaves of Bonn trees to her studio in Istanbul to work on them, she assured that every tree would be able to reunite with its trees. In her studio she placed the leaves in iron-framed airtight glass crates. Later, the leaves returned to Bonn in these iron and glass structures. Meanwhile, winter had arrived, and the trees had lost their leaves. However, each tree was reunited with its leaves. The trees were bare, but Handan had preserved the leaves that would have otherwise withered underfoot in glass plates and leaned them against the tree trunks. The frames were propped up against the tree trunks. The artist returned the leaves she had borrowed from the trees to them.
Handan made a second mark with daytime photos of the same location. The trees were always photographed from the same location with or without the circus tent. On some days the trees remained either under or behind the circus tent. The photographs emerged in situ just like the title of the work. Hence, this work is like a documentary of how this beautiful space which connects two museum buildings is used and misused.
In her work, Handan Börüteçene points to various social problems. Both buildings were opened ten years ago. Kunstmuseum Bonn was built by architect Axel Schulte and the Bundeskunsthalle by architect Gustav Peichl. The goal was to create a new seed; in a sense a cultural centre with the reputation of a museum, in the federal capital of Germany back then.
However, cultural policy has undergone so much change that nowadays artistic events and other events organized by the entertainment industry during which silent works of art cannot be exhibited are sought after and preferred. Thus, this space is utilized differently to architect Gustav Peichl vision. The labyrinth which used to be the symbol of the space no longer exists and the tree-lined path has become a nettlesome element as it makes entry to the temporary structure or circus difficult. As a result, the trees are damaged by the installation and removal of stands and the masses of people who follow large-scale music events in an intoxicated or tipsy state. The Museum Square has lost its peace and cultural stability. It is no longer a symbol of the real things that are taking place in the buildings; the collections and exhibits!
Handan must have picked up on all this quickly, but she must have also sussed out the quality of this square which found itself anew in the winter months. That is why she created a quiet, reticent and accusatory work against the pandemonium and popularisation. Even though the trees were lit up by the street lamps between them they still wouldn’t be noticed by many of the visitors at a glance.
We also discussed in detail whether these works would be able to survive being exhibited outdoors in open-air in the winter. For in places where above-mentioned events and organizations take place graffiti and destructive rage can be frequently encountered; aggression can be more apparent. Due to this, the work could not be insured. Handan exhibited the work by taking responsibility for the risks. However, both her and I were soon certain of one thing. This work would have such a great effect and have such invisible effect that they would by themselves form the respect that would preserve them from being damaged. And that is exactly how it turned out to be; all the works remained unharmed. The respect we anticipated really formed.
The same concern did not apply to the photographs because they were exhibited inside the Kunstmuseum, they were framed in glass and under the protection of the building. Visitors could immediately discern the connection between the works inside and outside the museum building as they entered and exited the museum through these photographs envisioned as a photographic documentation rather than artistic photos. As winter approached the trees lost their leaves and their crowns got thin on top, the greenery disappeared and what remained were bare trees.
With her interventions, alterations and repositioning Handan undertook a process of gathering evidence. Works of art are no longer viewed because this task is taken over by photographs. Instead she preserved what the trees lost and returned their stray pieces to them. The leaves she took from the trees became part of that tree again for a period of three months – a period in which the trees would not normally have leaves. Handan bestowed the leaves to the trees and referred to its life, being and breathing but also to what it bestows to us and its death.
In German art history – at least since Caspar David Friedrich and his painting titled, “Eiche im Schnee” (Oak Tree in the Snow) – the tree has been a metaphorical symbol of four seasons as well as life and death and hope for a new life. For, this life cycle is experienced every year by the tree and is comprehended as an important element in people’s world of imagination. Germany references the tree as a brother. Both its ecological and economic importance is acknowledged. Wild and dark German forests have been long sacrificed for mono-cultures that promise greater profits. However, the tree has always been an important part of adorning and accentuating the landscape and the aim of that particular place. The many tree-lined paths in castles and public gardens which you can see in almost all German towns refer to this.
Architect Gustav Peichl’s finely-tuned alignment of trees in Bonn points as much to the domestication of trees as it does to the vitality of their existence. The tree is not solely a specimen copied by the artist, it is also a symbol of human life. At the same time, it cuts through the emptiness and nothingness that appears in squares located between buildings with its beauty. The trees in Bonn’s Museum Square no longer self-seed, their numbers have been decided by an architect, their height has been judged by a gardener and they move on tracks that have been laid into their lives. It is at this exact point that Handan breaks these boundaries by giving back to the trees their essence and preserving their spirits.
In the context of art history, Handan Börüteçene works in the field of art that is in Europe called, “art in nature”3. Art returns to nature, artists no longer work from nature – which was an ongoing issue for many centuries – they now make use of nature and work alongside it. Handan could have, for example, made paintings of leaves and leaned the canvases against the trees. But no! She reaches out directly and uses nature’s materials because she doesn’t work against or beyond nature, she works together with nature. The new vision about painting emerges from nature. Nature reflects its own image through the agency of the artist.
Many artists from the art in nature movement worked in situ. However, no one ever did this right beside classic exhibition spaces. Handan Börüteçene succeeds in getting out of the artist’s hiding place, the forest, and connecting directly to the exhibiting institution. In turn, the institution suddenly goes beyond exhibiting works of art, and through the mediation of a work of art, exhibits the trees and leaves that were already in the Museum Square. Culture finds itself again through artistic intervention. It reintegrates the altera pars of nature and trees planted next to works of architecture into an aesthetic dialogue. Handan Börüteçene has realized a scholarly and well-thought out installations. She should be pleased with herself.
This work was the incandescent element of the exhibition for visitors from Bonn. Handan Börüteçene grasps the forest, this grove in between museum buildings as a cycle. In a sense the tree is the voice of blood, which is also the title of a renowned work by René Magritte held in the collection of the Vienna Modern Art Museum. The forest is a cycle. “In the beginning there was the forest… We fed from the tree of knowledge. I am the one who planted it so that the universe can rejoice with it and with it, I bent and formed the universe and called it universe because the universe is bound to it and originates from it; everything needs it and they all look at it, concern themselves with it and the spirits emerge from it. (From Sefer Ha-Bahir).
It is possible to continue referring to quotes about the tree in order to demonstrate how countless artists worked on the tree theme. Caspar David Friedrich can be mentioned but there are also other painters who literally pursued the tree such as Gerhard Richter, Richard Hamilton, René Magritte and William Turner. With its foliage, the tree is the crown and source of fire as well as for life. It is the place of the first sin because the serpent lives in the tree of the call to sin. Artists shape land art, plant trees and forests and make paintings of trees, forests, its secrets and opportunities. These opportunities should be rediscovered.
In society, at least in German society, the tree is a kind of alter ego and altera pars of nature. It is the friend of man; indeed, it is so close to him that it is beyond him. The tree does in a single year what man requires a life time to do. Despite this, it is longer-living than man. The tree is a myth as well as a part of our psychological habitat because it hears and sees. An engraving by Hieronymus Bosch (1460-1516) (Berlin, engraved copper panels) depicts it as such as does Jörg Immendorff in his work. The tree that sees, the tree that hears. Joseph Beuys planted 7000 oak trees because he knew that the oak, paired with a basalt stone, would herald the tree as a being. It is crystalloid with its shape, mass, size and weight; even if the conditions within the tree continuously change that crystalloid remains. Whereas stone remains the same, it is the same.
The tree plays an important role in all cultures. Handan Börüteçene is acquainted with these contexts. Her conduct is not impulsive, it is deliberate. Her work is not emotional, it is determined by informed concepts. The artist knows what she is doing.
Renowned Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet wrote as follows in his poem:
“To live,
Like a tree alone and free,
Like a forest in brotherhood
This yearning is ours.”
The interpretive options and the literary connections in Handan’s work titled, “A Work of Art for 36 Trees: In Situ” re-surface here. The artist is also conscious of this. The title of the tenth chapter of Orhan Pamuk’s novel, “My Name Is Red” is “I am a Tree”. The opening paragraph reads: “I am a tree and I am quite lonely. I weep in the rain. For the sake of Allah, listen to what I have to say. Drink down your coffee so your sleep abandons you and your eyes open wide. Stare at me as you would at jinns and let me explain to you why I’m so alone.”
Pamuk narrates the imagery of his story through the tree and tells the story of the tree falling through its history as the leaf falls from the tree. This chapter mentions poetry and painting, entertainment, music and coffee. But it eventually gets more serious because the poor tree was drawn inappropriately, in the style of Frank painters. Thus, the tree opposes: “I thank Allah that I, the humble tree before you, have not been drawn with such intent. And not because I fear that if I’d been thus depicted all the dogs in Istanbul would assume I was a real tree and piss on me. I don’t want to be a tree, I want to be its meaning”.
These few ideas open the door to the complexity of Handan’s work titled, “A Work of Art for 36 Trees: In Situ”. The artist presented a work that is more interpretive and that harbours more cultural references than these few lines of writing can express. Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the great German poets, wrote as follows in his poem titled, “Autumn”: “The leaves fall, fall as from far / Like distant gardens withered in the heavens”. Handan Börüteçene interferes in these gardens before the cycle. She reveals the destruction of divine order, subjects herself to it and widens deific creation. She corrects, makes a temporary correction and gives back to the trees the honour of their leaves.
Translation: Hande Eagle
1 Translator’s Note: The area referred to as `Museum Square`by Dieter Ronte is the paved open-air space between Kunstmuseum Bonn and Bundeskunsthalle. The 36 trees that Handan Börüteçene’s work took inspiration from are no longer there.
2 Exhibition catalogue, İm Zeichen der Stadt, Zeitgenössiche Kunst aus der Türkei (Symbols of the City – Contemporary Art from Turkey), Kunstmuseum Bonn, with the collaboration of Turkish/German Culture Forum.
3 Art in nature is an artistic movement in which many artists from across the world who work in nature with extremely different criteria participated. Art in nature is a project concept created by Elmar Zorn, Vittorio Fagone and Dieter Ronte about 15 years ago. See, “Dieter Ronte: Art and Culture of the Environments: A Concrete Working Perspective” (p.23 and thereafter) in Art in Nature by Vittorio Fagone, Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milan, 1996
4 Dieter Ronte, Die Stimme des Blutes (The Voice of Blood) p.13 and thereafter in Der Wald ein Zyklus (The Forest Is A Cycle) by Herman Prigann, Medusa Verlag, Vienna/Berlin, 1985. There is a lot of information in this source about the place of the tree in different cultures.
5 Jörg Immendorff, Malerdebatte, Kunstmuseum Bonn, 1998.
6 Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red (translated into English by Erdağ M. Göknar), Knopf Publishing Group, First American Edition, 2001, p. 47.
One Work for 36 Trees: In situ
“The Sign of the City” Exhibition
2001, Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany
