Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2017–2018 – case study

Piotr Wesołowski

doi:10.37190/arc190312

Abstract

In the article the exhibition of works of art realized or publish in the biennale of the art of nature Geumgang Nature Art Biennale in the years 2017–2018 in Gongju (South Korea) have been discussed. The aim of this work is the presentation of the results of the analysis of spatial forms on the border line of artistic and architectonic creation. The author, who took part in this exhibition assumed that such an analysis of projects and realization will allow presenting the possibility of creative confrontation of various attitudes of artists towards the problem of the presence of man in the natural environment. The task of creating a shelter-hut in the natural environment (forest) was set before the artists. The topic became an excuse for searching for a formal, artistic and aesthetic answer to the question about contemporary human and nature relations in the context of the developing trend of eco-aesthetics.     The analysis of 147 submitted projects and 11 works that were completed in the 1st stage of the biennale concerned the form, function and symbolism contained in the proposed objects. The research material was composed of photographic documentation and comprehensive catalogue. What draws attention above all is the wide spectrum of shapes of shelters – from abstract forms to biomorphic, zoomorphic and even anthropomorphic ones being part of the natural environment. In the project descriptions artists declared simple functions – from the role of shelter protecting from atmospheric influences, through observatories, to places for meditation. Some artists emphasized the possible role of the shelter as a refuge for forest fauna as well. The vast majority of authors proposed natural and biodegradable materials. Thus, such objects with assumed limited durability have entered the field of ephemeral art.     In the summing up part of the article, conclusions have been formulated regarding both the creative permeation of artistic and architectural ideas in such an experimental form, as well as the undertaking of important contemporary problems in the artistic confrontation, regarding the state of the natural environment and the presence of man in it.

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