Exhibition in the State Museum – The forest and us – a fragile relationship – culture
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Man needs the forest and destroys it in the process. An exhibition in Zurich makes a fragile relationship tangible.
How relaxing it is to walk between trees. This became clear to many again recently during the pandemic. This is called forest bathing in Japanese culture. The only thing that tells of this mindfulness technique in the exhibition at the National Museum in Zurich is a small book in a display case.
The forest is still vividly present. In the very first room, the real-size Zurich Sihlwald is projected onto a wall. There’s rustling, there’s chirping, there’s pattering in the rain. Pure idyll? no way. A man is already reaching out with his hatchet to let it crash down on a tree trunk. It is Ferdinand Hodler’s “The Lumberjack”.
Man as an intruder
That’s the program: “We wanted to draw attention to the beauty of the forest,” says historian Pascale Meyer, who co-curated the exhibition. “And we also wanted to show with the Hodler: Humans intervene.” While felling wood he destroys the forest.
This dual nature already sets the course for everything else. The exhibition shows two perspectives on the forest: the historical and socio-political one – and that of the arts. “We wanted to overcome the separation of nature and culture in order to be able to talk about human behavior,” explains Pascale Meyer.
Rainforest in Switzerland
The exhibition invites you to take a cultural and historical walk. Petrified leaves prove that 13 million years ago a subtropical rain forest climate prevailed in Switzerland and that the forest was a tropical forest at the time. Tools from past centuries tell of the timber industry. A document from the 13th century shows that the forest once belonged to secular and spiritual authorities.
In a second part, the exhibition makes the forest in art more flexible. However, only from the romance. That’s amazing. “It was not until the Romantic period that the forest became a main motif,” explains art historian and co-curator Regula Moser. “It’s no longer just accessories for biblical and mystical themes.”
The forest as a counterpoint
The transfiguration of the forest is obvious. Dying in stark contrast to the industrialization that was sweeping society at the same time. This is a reaction, says Regula Moser: “The more threatened the forest is, the more exaggerated it is portrayed by people at the same time.”
In the last part, the view opens up to the urgent questions of the present: the consequences of deforestation and climate change. The Basel naturalist Paul Sarasin is honored as the founder of the Swiss National Park.
The missing Basel native Bruno Manser is extensively introduced as a rainforest activist. There are also surprises here: for example Adolf Ogi’s pullover, which Manser knitted in one of his campaigns for the Federal Council in 1993.
In the end, little is left of the idyll of the forest. “Every minute, three football fields of forest are cut down around the world,” says historian Pascale Meyer. There is no reason to conclude with a positive image. What is now in the room is brilliant: Ugo Rondinone’s cast of an ancient olive tree. He stands there whitewashed and bald – like a bogeyman.