About Art and the Necessity of Gardening.
In this age of climate crisis, the relationship between man and nature is under tremendous strain. More and more artists are shifting their focus to the garden. Raising critical questions about the way nature is being subdued and exploited, they call for a radical reshaping of our relationship with nature. It is time for a botanical revolution!
Already in the 1970s, Tetsumi Kudo warned us against the calamitous effects of mankind on nature. Yet with this grim garden of plastic waste, he offers a glimmer of hope in these dark days. Kudo grafted plastic flowers and plants onto aluminium trunks.
Grafting is a technique that involves attaching part of a plant to the trunk or stem of a different plant. This makes the plant more resilient to disease or challenging conditions.
Henk Wildschut photographed the improvised gardens of people who have lost their homes and ended up in refugee camps.
Gardening and seeing flowers blossom can offer solace, even when hope seems far away.
This scene’s baroque lighting gives it an intangible quality. It looks as if nature itself has been manipulated here – or is it just the photograph that has been doctored?
Elspeth Diederix created this flower portrait in the Miracle Garden, her public flower garden and atelier in Amsterdam.
Over the past year, many of us rediscovered our gardens. The vegetable garden proved to be the ultimate lockdown project – even the scant few square feet of our balconies offered some solace. In our gardens, we took comfort and hope from nature.
Maria Thereza Alves shows how “typically Dutch” flowers and plants actually found their way to our country via colonial trade routes.
The subject of this art work by Patricia Kaersenhout is how the botanical knowledge of Surinamese women was appropriated by Western scientists.
South-African artist Lungiswa Gqunta presents a lawn as a dangerous landscape made up of glass shards, literally forming a sharp contrast with the concept of the garden as a place for rest and enjoyment. In the South African townships, almost nobody owns a lawn: having a garden is a sign of wealth and privilege.
The concept of the garden as a microcosm, a mirror of the world, has a very long history. Many cultures and religions see gardens as harmonious, secluded places of refuge. Take the Garden of Eden, for example: the first paradise.
The Botanical Revolution reveals the similarities between past and present and explains the views of contemporary art on gardens and nature.
- Title
- De botanische revolutie
- Alternative title
- Over kunst en de noodzaak van tuinieren
- Exhibition start date
- 11 September 2021
- Exhibition end date
- 1 May 2022
- Location
- Centraal Museum (expo 1, expo 2, expo 3, tuin)
- Vormgever
- Studio FormaFantasma
- Documentation
- On the Necessity of Gardening: An ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation, Foreword Erik A. de Jong; Laurie Cluitmans, Arent Boon, Eva Burgering (ed), with contributions by Maria Barnas, Jonny Bruce, Laurie Cluitmans ... [et al.], Valiz (Amsterdam, 2021) Centraal Museum (Utrecht, 2021), 240 p.
- Sjanghaipark : Experimenteel geworteld in het alledaagse ; Experimentally rooted in the everyday, Voorw. Bart Rutten, Laurie Cluitmans ; Martine Bakker, Eleonoor Jap Sam, Hans van Lunteren, Bettina van Santen (ed.), Jap Sam Books (Prinsenbeek, 2021), 132 p.
- Jennifer Tee : TAMPAN TULIP : Seasonal work, [concept Jennifer Tee ; texts Natascha Ginwala, Sophie J Williamson], Revolver (Berlin, 2022), [192] p.
- Open-ended visions of possibilities : patricia kaersenhout, ed. and comp. Chandra Frank, Eleonoor Jap Sam, Patricia Kaersenhout ; contr. Barby Asante ...[et al.], Jap Sam Books (Prinsenbeek, 2023), p. 256
- De terugkeer van Moeder Aarde, Edo Dijksterhuis, (Museumtijdschrift [Vitrine], Jaargang: 34, Aflevering: 5, juli-aug 2021), pp. 24-29
- De botanische revolutie : over noodzaak van kunst en tuinieren, Sarah van Binsbergen, (De Volkskrant, 17 september 2021), V 11
- Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers? [Een tentoonstelling bij Nest, 10.9-19.12-2021], Laurie Cluitmans, Heske ten Cate, Eva Burgering ... [et al.], (Metropolis M, Aflevering: 5, sep/okt 2021), losse bijlage, 78 p.
- Het gras is altijd groener : Lungiswa Gqunta, Laurie Cluitmans, (Metropolis M, Aflevering: 6, dec/jan 2021/2022), pp. 78-83
- High Ambition. Reflections on European projects at the intersection of culture, climate emergency and urban context, Agnieszka Smigiel, Francesca Pajno, (arte e spazio pubblico, 2023), p. 338-345
- Uitmarkt : Kunst en ecologie : De laatste sanseveria, Roos van der Lint, (De Groene Amsterdammer : weekblad voor Nederland, Jaargang: 145, Aflevering: 34, 26 aug 2021), pp. 44-47
- Oud-Utrecht : tijdschrift voor geschiedenis van stad en provincie Utrecht, Vereniging Oud-Utrecht (Utrecht)
Collection in this exhibition
Featuring work by
Abraham Bloemaert, Ambrosius Bosschaert de Jonge, Anoniem Nederlands, DMD, Droog Design, Herman Kruyder, Jan Saenredam, Jennifer Tee, Johannes Bosschaert, Jurgen Bey, Lungiswa Gqunta, Margit Lukács, Maria Pask, Otto van Rees, patricia kaersenhout, Persijn Broersen, Roelant Saverij
Centraal Museum
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