Paesaggio (Penguin issue)

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alison knowles q anna blessmann and peter saville gerry bibby q gianfranco baruchello giuseppe penone q jimmie durham marĂ­a thereza alves q philippe parreno and bas smets qiu zhijie q silke otto-knapp

guest editor

Hans Ulrich Obrist

a project by Blauer Hase

published by

MER. Paper Kunsthalle

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Paesaggio

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Paesaggio

MER. Paper Kunsthalle

Dear Reader, What you have in your hands is the latest issue of a publication series that began in May 2010.

Paesaggio is a collection of artist works that respond to our request for textual contributions of landscapes that avoid the use of images.

In previous issues, artists have approached our proposal with different methods, such as: essays, stories, poems, documents, literary research, dialogues, notes, scripts, texts expanding existing artworks and even artworks that cannot exist outside the written form. There is no clear visual separation between each contribution and the authors are not identified before each text, as if to compose an actual paesaggio, that is, a flux of diverse elements on the same surface.

For this issue, and for the first time we decided to invite a guest-editor.

We are thrilled to present a collection of landscapes curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

On 15-16 October 2011, the Serpentine Gallery in London hosted the Garden Marathon, the sixth in the Gallery’s Marathon series conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist together with Julia Peyton-Jones, Sally Tallant, Nicola Lees and Lucia Pietroiusti.

The event explored the concept of the garden: “a product of the creative encounter between the man-made and the natural, between order and disorder, the garden can offer productive metaphors for the interactions between human life and time, care, thought or space”.

The selection of the authors for this Paesaggio is closely connected to that event.

Our most sincere acknowledgement go to Hans Ulrich Obrist, to all the artist that have accepted to take part in this project and to MER. Paper Kunsthalle that is helping us grow Paesaggio.

We are pleased to welcome the reader into this series of artist gardens Blauer Hase

Hans Ulrich Obrist Garden List – An Introduction

This list was first published in La Ville, Le Jardin, La Memoire, curated by Laurence Bossé, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Hans Ulrich Obrist for Villa Medici.

It includes a list which Hou Hanru and Hans Ulrich Obrist have compiled for Cities on the Move and some elements from a list from A12 and Gilbert and George and many other lists.

Une liste peut en cacher une autre.

Many thanks to Cedric Price, Peter Cook, Rem Koolhaas and Georges Perec who triggered the list.

Thanks also to David Greene, Stefano Boeri, Andrea Branzi, M/M and Claire Sabatié-Garat.

A Garden

Brain Garden

Constant Garden

Abandoned Garden

Brand Garden

Constellation Garden

ABGarden

Brave Garden

Construction Garden

Abstract Garden

Bridge Garden

Container Garden

Act Garden

Broadacre Garden

Contemporary Garden

Active Garden

Broken Garden

Context Garden

Actor-Network Garden

Bubble Garden

Continent Garden

Actual Garden

Bunker Garden

Continental Garden

Ad-hoc Garden

Bustling Garden

Cool Garden

Additive Garden

Busy Garden

Cord Garden

African Garden

Butterflies Garden

Cordless Garden

Agglomeration Garden

Calibration Garden

Core Garden

Aggregative Garden

Camp Garden

Corporate Garden

Agora Garden

Camping Garden

Correspondence Garden

Agricultural Garden

Campus Garden

Corridor Garden

Air Garden

Capable Garden

Cosmetic Garden

Airconditioning Garden

Capital Garden

Cosmic Garden

Airport Garden

Caprice Garden

Countless Garden

Airship Garden

Capsule Garden

Coupling Garden

Airstrip Garden

Captive Garden

Crazy Garden

Amazon Garden

Car Garden

Cream Garden

Ambiguous Garden

Cartoon Garden

Creative Garden

American Garden

Casino Garden

Creol Garden

Analogous Garden

Cat Garden

Crime Garden

And-so-on Garden

Catalogue Garden

Criss Garden

Angel Garden

Cell Garden

Cross Garden

Angie Garden

Centre Garden

Crossing Garden

Animate Garden

Centreless Garden

Crowd Garden

Anti Garden

Certified Garden

Cruise Garden

Anticipatory Garden

Chaos Garden

Crumpled Garden

Any Garden

Children Garden

Crying Garden

Apocalyptic Garden

Choice Garden

Crystal Garden

Apotheotic Garden

Cine Garden

Cult Garden

Arcade Garden

Citizen Garden

Cumulative Garden

Archaic Garden

Civic Garden

Cut & Paste Garden

Archipelag Garden

Civil Garden

Cutting-edge Garden

Arsenal Garden

Clandestine Garden

Cyber Garden

Arti Garden

Classic Garden

Cybernetic Garden

Artisanal Garden

Cliff Garden

Cyborg Garden

Asian Garden

Climax Garden

Cynical Garden

Assistant Garden

Clinic Garden

Dark Garden

Astral Garden

Cloud Garden

Darrow Garden

Asylum Garden

Club Garden

Data Garden

Atopical Garden

Cluster Garden

Day Garden

Automobile Garden

Coast Garden

Dead Garden

Autonomous Garden

Cohab Garden

Deadend Garden

Bag Garden

Cold Garden

Death Garden

Banal Garden

Collab Garden

Decadent Garden

Baroque Garden

Collage Garden

Decentred Garden

Base Garden

Collapse Garden

Declining Garden

Bastard Garden

Collective Garden

Deconstruction Garden

Bath Garden

College Garden

Decoy Garden

Baton Garden

Collision Garden

Definite Garden

Beginning Garden

Colour Garden

Delirious Garden

Best Garden

Combinational Garden

Demo Garden

Beyond Garden

Coming Garden

Demon Garden

Big Garden

Coming-to-be Garden

DenGarden

Bike Garden

Commercial Garden

Departure Garden

Bio Garden

Derelict Garden

Bioclimatic Garden

Commodity Garden/ Garden-as-Commodity

Bird Garden

Communal Garden

Desert Garden

Bird-eye Garden

Commuter Garden

Detached Garden

Bit Garden

Compact Garden

Device Garden

Bite Garden

Company Garden

Diagonal Garden

Black Garden

Compassion Garden

Diamond Garden

Bleep Garden

Competition Garden

Diaspora Garden

Blitz Garden

Complex Garden

Difuse Garden

Blood Garden

Complex-dynamic Garden

Dilate Garden

Blow Garden

Comprehensive Garden

Dim Garden

Blow Out Garden

Computer Garden

Diminished Garden

Blue Garden

Concentration Garden

Dirt Garden

Blur Garden

Conclave Garden

Disaster Garden

Body Garden

Conclusive Garden

Discovery Garden

Book Garden

Concrete Garden

Disintegral Garden

Boom Garden

Confused Garden

Dismantled Garden

Border Garden

Conglomerate Garden

Display Garden

Box Garden

Conspiracy Garden

Disposal Garden

Derregulation Garden

Distinctive Garden

Fame Garden

Holland Garden

Lion Garden

Distorted Garden

Fantastic Garden

Holographic Garden

Liquid Garden

DiverGarden

Fast Garden

Holy Garden

Live Garden

Dizzy Garden

Fax Garden

Homogenic Garden

Living Garden

Doc Garden

Feather Garden

Horizontal Garden

Local Garden

Dog Garden

Feedback Garden

Hot Garden

Loft Garden

Dogma Garden

First Garden

House Garden

Loop Garden

Doll Garden

Fist Garden

Hovering Garden

Love Garden

Double Garden

Flat Garden

Hub Garden

Lung Garden

Doubt Garden

Floating Garden

Hurry Garden

Lure Garden

Down Garden

Flood Garden

Hybrid Garden

Machine Garden

Drag Garden

Flow Garden

Hyper Garden

Macro Garden

Dramatic Garden

Fluctuation Garden

Ideal Garden

Mad Garden

Dream Garden

Fluid Garden

Illegal Garden

Madang Garden

Drop Garden

Flux Garden

Imaginary Garden

Magic Garden

Drug Garden

Fly Garden

Imagination Garden

Magnet Garden

Drum Garden

Footnote Garden

Immaterial Garden

Magnificient Garden

Dust Cloud Garden

Forbidden Garden

Immediate Garden

Mailorder Garden

Dust Garden

Forest Garden

Immersive Garden

Mall Garden

Duty-free Garden

Fort Garden

Imperfect Garden

Malleable Garden

Dwelling Garden

Fortress Garden

Inanimate Garden

Manifesto Garden

Dynamic Garden

Fountain Garden

Indefinite Garden

Map Garden

Dynamo Garden

Fragile Garden

Indifferent Garden

Marine Garden

Dystopian Garden

Free Garden

Individual Garden

Mark Garden

E-Garden

Free-flying Garden

Industrial Garden

Market Garden

Earth Garden

Freeway Garden

Infiltration Garden

Mars Garden

Earthbound Garden

Frenzy Garden

Infinite Garden

Master Garden

Eastern Garden

Frivolous Garden

Inflatable Garden

Matriuschka Garden

Easy Garden

Frontier Garden

Information Garden

Matrix Garden

Ebola Garden

Fuck-Context Garden

Infra Garden

Maximum Garden

Eco Garden

Funnel Garden

Inhibited Garden

Mean Garden

Eco-Media Garden

Fuse Garden

Insertive Garden

Mechanical Garden

EcstaGarden

Future Garden

Instant Garden

Media Garden

Ecumenic Garden

Futurist Garden

Instrumental Garden

Mediated Garden

Edge Garden

Fuzzy Garden

Intangible Garden

Medieval Garden

Edible Garden

Gallery Garden

Integral Garden

Medium Garden

Edit Garden

Game Garden

Intelligent Garden

Medusa Garden

Edo Garden

Gap Garden

IntenGarden

Mega Garden

Electric Garden

Garden Garden

Inter Garden

Memorial Garden

Elementary Garden

Garden Garden

Interchange Garden

Memory Garden

Elusive Garden

Garden on the Move

Interconnected Garden

Mental Garden

Emergency Garden

Gate Garden

Interdisciplinary Garden

Metaphoric Garden

Emergent Garden

Gateway Garden

Interest Garden

Meteorite Garden

Empty Garden

Generic Garden

Interfolded Garden

Middle Garden

Enclave Garden

Genetic Garden

Interior Garden

Migration Garden

End Garden

Geodesic Garden

Intermediate Garden

Mini Garden

Enhanced Garden

Ghetto Garden

Internal Garden

Minimal Garden

Enigmatic Garden

Ghost Garden

International Garden

Minor Garden

Entertainment Garden

Giant Garden

Interval Garden

Micro Garden

Entropic Garden

Glam Garden

Intertwined Garden

Mitigated Garden

Ephemeral Garden

Global Garden

Intra Garden

Mix Garden

Erotic Garden

Glocal Garden

Invisible Garden

Mixing Garden

Erratic Garden

God Garden

Island Garden

Mobile Garden

Escalator Garden

Gonna Garden

Isotropic Garden

Model Garden

Esoteric Garden

Good Garden

Jargon Garden

Modern Garden

Etcetera Garden

Gossip Garden

Joint Garden

Modest Garden

Ether Garden

Gotha Garden

Junk Garden

Modular Garden

European Garden

Gothic Garden

Kaleidoscope Garden

Module Garden

Ever Garden

Great Garden

King Garden

Moebius Garden

Every Garden

Green Garden

Knowledge Garden

Molecular Garden

Everyone’s Garden

Grey Garden

Kool Garden

Monad Garden

Everything-but-the-Garden

Grey Realm Garden

Kraftwerk Garden

Money Garden

Everywhere Garden

Groundless Garden

Lab Garden

Mono Garden

Ex Garden

Growing Garden

Label Garden

Monumental Garden

Exacerbated Garden

Growth Garden

Labor Garden

Moon Garden

Excuse Garden

Gulag Garden

Laid-back Garden

Morphing Garden

Expanding Garden

Gum Garden

Landmark Garden

Mosaic Garden

Expensive Garden

Hanging Garden

Last Garden

Multi-speed Garden

Experimental Garden

Happening Garden

Layered Garden

Multidimensional Garden

Expansion Garden

Hard Garden

Leaf Garden

Multifunctional Garden

Extra Garden

Heart Garden

Learning Garden

Multinational Garden

Extraterrestrial Garden

Heavy Garden

Leftover Garden

Mundane Garden

Exuberant Garden

Heroic Garden

Lego Garden

Museum Garden

Fabulous Garden

Heterogenic Garden

Leisure Garden

Must Garden

Facade Garden

High Tech Garden

Level Garden

Mutable Garden

Fair Garden

Highway Garden

Life Garden

Mutant Garden

Fall Garden

Hip Hop Garden

Liminal Garden

Naked Garden

Falls Garden

Hoax Garden

Limited Garden

Nameless Garden

False Garden

Holistic Garden

Linear Garden

Nano Garden

Narrative Garden

Piss Garden

Rogue Garden

Sprawling Garden

True Garden

National Garden

Pixel Garden

Romantic Garden

Spreading Garden

Try Garden

Naval Garden

Pizza Garden

Roof Garden

Stage Garden

Tuned Garden

Near Garden

Placard Garden

Rose Garden

Star Garden

Tunnel Garden

Negotiation Garden

Plan Garden

Rough Garden

Start Up Garden

Twin Garden

Neo Garden

Play Garden

Row Garden

Stereo Garden

Twisted Garden

Neon Garden

Pleasure Garden

Royal Garden

Still Garden

U Garden

Neorealist Garden

Plug-in-Garden

Rubble Garden

Stir Garden

UFO Garden

Nerd Garden

Pneumatic Garden

Ruin Garden

Street Garden

Unbound Garden

Nerve Garden

Pocket Garden

Rumour Garden

Stress Garden

Uncertain Garden

Nested Garden

Poetic Garden

Running Garden

Stretched Garden

Unfinished Garden

Net Garden

Political Garden

Rural Garden

String Garden

Uninhibited Garden

Network Garden

Pompous Garden

Rush Garden

Stroll Garden

Unitary Garden

Neural Garden

Pop-Up Garden

Sale Garden

Strong Garden

Unlimited Garden

Never Garden

Porno Garden

Sand Garden

Structural Garden

Unrealised Garden

New Garden

Portal Garden

Sandwich Garden

Studio Garden

Unrealistic Garden

New Garden

Post Garden

Scale Garden

Subtle Garden

Unstable Garden

Niche Garden

Post-it Garden

Scan Garden

Suburban Garden

Urban Mark Garden

Night Garden

Postcard Garden

Scene Garden

Succeeding Garden

Utopian Garden

No Garden

Posthuman Garden

Sci-fi Garden

Success Garden

Valley Garden

No Stop Garden

Postindustrial Garden

Science Garden

Sudden Garden

Vanishing Garden

Node Garden

Postmodern Garden

Scoop Garden

Suicide Garden

Vast Garden

Noise Garden

Postnational Garden

Scream Garden

Sun Garden

Vegan Garden

Nomadic Garden

Posturban Garden

Screen Garden

Sunbelt Garden

Vernacular Garden

Nonlinear Garden

Precinct Garden

Sea Garden

Super Garden

Vertical Garden

Nonstop Garden

Preemptive Garden

Sea Garden

Super-fluid Garden

Vespa Garden

Noplan Garden

Prefab Garden

Seal Garden

Superblock Garden

Vice Garden

Northern Garden

Present-day Garden

Season Garden

Suprematic Garden

ViGarden

Nostalgic Garden

Pretext Garden

Security Garden

Surreal Garden

Village Garden

Not-a-Garden

Price Garden

Sedative Garden

Survival Garden

Violin Garden

Notable Garden

Priceless Garden

See Garden

Symbolic Garden

Virgin Garden

Number Garden

Private Garden

Selt-organised Garden

Syntax Garden

Virtual Garden

Oasis Garden

Procedural Garden

Semi Garden

System Garden

Vital Garden

Oblique Garden

Process Garden

Sequential Garden

Tactile Garden

Vitamin Garden

Obnoxious Garden

Project Garden

Service Garden

Take-off Garden

Vulgar Garden

Obsessive Garden

Promiscuous Garden

Sex Garden

Taste Garden

Walking Garden

Obvious Garden

Protein Garden

Shadow Garden

Techno Garden

War Garden

Ocean Garden

Proud Garden

Shaman Garden

Tele Garden

Wash Garden

Odd Garden

Psychogeographic Garden

Shanty Garden

Telematic Garden

Waste Garden

Office Garden

Pulse Garden

Shopping Garden

Temple Garden

Water Garden

OK Garden

Punch Garden

Show Garden

Temporary Garden

Waterfront Garden

Old Garden

Pyramid Garden

Side by Side Garden

Temptation Garden

Weak Garden

Only Garden

Quasi Garden

Sign Garden

TenaGarden

Weather Garden

Open Garden

Queen Garden

Signal Garden

Tenant Garden

Web Garden

Open-to-sky-Garden

Queer Garden

Sim Garden

Tender Garden

Weird Garden

Orchard Garden

Radio Garden

Simple Garden

Tender Garden

Western Garden

Organ Garden

Rain Garden

Sin Garden

Tent Garden

Whale Garden

Organic Garden

Ramified Garden

Sinking Garden

Tentacle Garden

What If Garden

Original Garden

Random Garden

Sky Garden

Tentative Garden

While Garden

Oscillation Garden

Re-use Garden

Skyline Garden

Terminal Garden

White Garden

Ought-to-be-a-Garden

Ready Garden

Slacker Garden

THE Garden

Why Not Garden

Ouss Garden

Ready Made Garden

Slam Garden

Theater Garden

Widespread Garden

Outer Garden

Real Garden

Sleepless Garden

Theme Garden

Wild Garden

Oxygen Garden

Realised Garden

Slick Garden

Thick Garden

Wind Garden

Oyster Garden

Realistic Garden

Slow Garden

Thin Garden

Wired Garden

Ozone Garden

Reconnection Garden

Smooth Garden

Third Garden

Working Garden

Paint Garden

Recordable Garden

Snow Garden

Ticklish Garden

Worst Garden

Panoptic Garden

Red Garden

So What Garden

Time Garden

X Garden

Panorama Garden

Reflective Garden

So-and-so Garden

Time-warp Garden

X-ray Garden

Parallel Garden

Refugee Garden

So-called Garden

Tiny Garden

Zero Degree Garden

Parallel Garden

Regional Garden

Social Garden

Toll Garden

Zip Garden

Park Garden

Regulation Garden

Soft Garden

Tool Garden

Zone Garden

Party Garden

Relational Garden

Software Garden

Tower Garden

Passage Garden

Remapping Garden

Sore Garden

Traffic Garden

Passing Garden

Renaissance Garden

Sorry Garden

Tram Garden

Patchwork Garden

Rent-a-Garden

Soul Garden

Trans Garden

Pathological Garden

Replica Garden

Sound Garden

Transexperience Garden

Patient Garden

Repressive Garden

Southern Garden

Transgressive Garden

Pavilion Garden

Reserve Garden

Space Garden

Transitory Garden

Pedestrian Garden

Residential Garden

Spacetime Garden

Transnational Garden

Pee Cee Garden

Residual Garden

Sparkling Garden

Transport Garden

Pentagon Garden

Resurrection Garden

Spatial Garden

Trauma Garden

Perceptual Garden

Rich Garden

Spectral Garden

Travelling Garden

Performative Garden

Ring Garden

Speed Garden

Travesia Garden

Peripathetic Garden

Riot Garden

Sphere Garden

Tree Garden

Peristaltic Garden

Rite Garden

Spider Garden

Tri Garden

Permit Garden

Road Garden

Spiral Garden

Trickling Garden

Pervasive Garden

Roadless Garden

Splendid Garden

Trojan Garden

Phantom Garden

Rock Garden

Sprawl Garden

Tropical Garden

Alison Knowles .............................................................................................11 Qiu Zhijie .....................................................................................................12 Jimmie Durham ............................................................................................22 Giuseppe Penone ..........................................................................................23 Anna Blessmann and Peter Saville .................................................................28 MarĂ­a Thereza Alves .....................................................................................34 Silke Otto-Knapp ..........................................................................................36 Philippe Parreno and Bas Smets ....................................................................43 Gerry Bibby ..................................................................................................45 Gianfranco Baruchello ..................................................................................52

9

SEVEN GARDENS

Paesaggio requested me to make a description about scenery and garden only with words but not pictures, which is almost impossible for me as a native Chinese speaker. As pictograms that have been in use for thousands of years, most Chinese characters are already pictures in themselves, such as the two characters “Ņb” (huayuan, “garden” in Chinese):

Ņ őb No need to go far back, we come to the characters very close to pictures:

And even pictures in full sense:

In this garden, there are fence walls, grass and trees, and a pond in the center, round at first, and then square. Before the pond, there is even a person in clothes. His vision drops between the flowers and trees staggering far over the pond. Watching the trees casting light and dark shadows on the walls, he draws their silhouettes silently with a brush in his heart.

With a sigh, he knows that he still cannot really reach the level of the artistic conception his master once mentioned when he was alive. He hears the sound of the wind outside the walls, which is like that of a piece of metal being pulled on a stone plate, or that of a flute blown by someone on the city wall, and sounds with laughter from the night market.

Subconsciously, he tightens his collar.

His left lapel presses over the right one. Opening to the right, the whole collar looks like the shape of the letter “y”. Only the barbarians in ancient China would do it the other way.

12

He walks in and sits down in front of the desk. The moonlight has turned cool, and the ink in the inkstone is a bit coagulated, so he breathes onto the inkstone several times before picking up the brush and dipping it in the ink. He thinks of the feasts and literary gatherings in the summertime in this garden, during which all the friends were sitting beside the zigzag brook, and he who gets the floating wine cup would immediately compose a poem.

The arguments they have had regarding whether the fish in the water are really as happy as they appear to be remain unresolved. And the chess games, like this garden, are always full of secrets, and seem otherworldly. Even though the friends are far from each other now, they share the same waning moon. But where is the woman who once stood together with him in front of the window and counted the birds flying back home?

He scribbles down these characters on the paper:

 13

Putting down his brush, he looks at these characters, which seem not have been written by him at all. He feels that on the top of his brush is not ink, but a kind of developing solution, which just reveals the characters that have been written secretly on this paper ever since the ancient time. For the first time, he feels kind of uneasy, as if being besieged firmly by these characters, just like by the walls of this garden. He has not walked out of this garden for long, but in fact, he has been spending his whole life here. Nevertheless, this garden is even stranger for him. The zigzag paths always make him lost, and the rockeries change forms in the twilight every day. At deep night, he can hear the sound of the growth of grass and trees, as well as that of the crunchy rockeries being weathered, mixed together with the tedious and long-last undertone of the moving celestial bodies. This garden is so profound that there might be secrets of poetry and painting hidden in each corner. The angles between the water surface and the rockeries are designed strictly according to the principles of mathematics and music. Although rains change the level of water, the rockeries might be submerged or exposed in different way, the sceneries here always look perfect. Before today, he has never felt it necessary to leave this garden. It is not at all a garden in the world, but one that contains the whole world. The world outside of the walls is just an imperfect mirror image of this garden.

For years, his only active communication with the outer world is the letter with poems he threw into the flowing water. The water welled up from a spring in the garden, and his poems were poured out from his wine jar. The two were synchronized in extraordinary profusion  at the night with a full moon. It was just the spring water and poems flowed out that attracted the wind and butterflies from the outer world.

14

mountain-like brush holder He puts down his brush and inclines it on the “mountain-like brush holder” on the desk.

The brush holder is a two-cun big fine porcelain in the exact shape of the Chinese character “ ” (shan, “hill” in Chinese) in the style of inscription on oracle bones. It looks like three connected peaks, and like the English letter “W” as well. The two valleys are right for supporting the bamboo body of the brush, so as to prevent the fluid ink from soiling the desk. The hair on the tip of his brush is made of the hair on the tail of weasels in the east Liao province and the beards of rats in the east of Guangdong province. In the seal character “Ĥ” (bi, “brush” in Chinese), the two sets of bamboo leaves at the top tells us the material quality of the brush body, bitter bamboo growing in Huzhou by the Taihu Lake in Zhejiang province. On the lower part of the vertical body is the loose brush hair, and in the middle is a right hand holding the body. The four virtues of a brush is “to be sharp, even, round and sturdy;” The rule of holding a brush is “to press by fingers firmly while release the palm empty, and to leave the wrist horizontal and palm vertical;” in the final analysis, with the heart just, the brush is in correctitude. This is what this character apparently seems to tell.

The Chinese character “s” (mo, “ink” in Chinese) draws out the picture of a strong fire and soot accumulating on the roof of a shed. The method of making the ink on his brush tip is burning the old pine branches from the Yellow Mountain, collecting the black soot of them from the roof, mixing the black soot in Huizhou district with the deerhorn glue from Dai prefecture (produced through stewing the deerhorn with water for a long time till it condensed into glue), adding muskiness, and smashing it for thousands of times. The pine soot once suffused an exquisite fragrance all around now becomes an ink ingot, the fragrance of which no longer suffused around, but solidified in waiting. It leans on the edge of the inkstone, which is made of a stone from a puddle in Duanzhou district, Guangdong province. This kind of stone is perennially in water, so is with fine and hard quality, and is as mild and smooth as jade. It does not wear the brush hair, and is all right to grind ink with little water as that in one’s breath.

The paper he wrote on now is made of the fibre of day lilies in Jing county, Anhui province.

The yellow flower of this kind of plant is called “golden needle,” and forgetting grass. It tastes delicious in soup. Eating it, one forgets love. The living room of his mother is gloomy, and she can plant day lilies in.

ink

Looking at the “mountain-like brush holder” on his desk, he sees all the peaks in the world.

15

This desk is the real garden. The garden out of the window is just the mirror image of that on the desk. In the latter, there is a stone awake from the water, pine trees from the Yellow Mountain, bamboo forest from Huzhou district, and grass from Jing county growing densely in the shade of an architecture. Among the plants, there is a lucky deer from the north strolling around, and a mysterious weasel that can stand up as a man does.

The pine trees from the Yellow Mountain turned into smoke, and into solid ink ingot, and with dew and spring water mixed in, on the inkstone made in Duanzhou district, the ink ingot is grinded into liquid ink, and then coagulates on the paper made of day lilies and becomes poems and paintings. And all his poems and paintings are for understanding the Yellow Mountain.

The mountains are as perfect as a bonsai, as if each angle of them being carefully arranged by a master of garden according to a famous ancient painting. The garden right in the front, obviously being a masterpiece of a garden master in the previous dynasty, appears to be a work of the Nature. Both the two are too perfect as dreams to be believable.

However, in the winding corridor in the garden, there are windows in different shapes in the wall. The fan-shaped, round, and square windows are just like painting frames hanging on the wall. Each time looking over through these windows, he sees not only exquisite brushworks and ink colours in distinct schools and successions, but also long prefaces and postscripts. Besides, in the part of the wall turning back to the north, a lot of steles in different dynasties are inlaid. The steles record real stories that happened in this garden in detail, which forces him to believe that this is not a dream. The rubbings of those steles are right now on the left of his desk. All these rubbings together make up for a map of this garden with texts.

He puts his sight on that pile of rubbings. Moving away the inkstone and brush holder, he takes up the first piece of rubbing to examine carefully.

This piece records a royal banquet, which happened in the garden when it was just established:

16

The second piece records a known gathering of poets more than one thousand years ago.

17

The third records the story of a family who owned this garden 400 years ago.

The fourth weirdly records stories, which happened in this garden. They are various young women, who seemed to have suffered a lot in their life.

18

What the fifth records, seems like a garden in waste. He does not remember if he has ever seen this stele in the wall, nor know if it records this garden, but just looks like it in structure. It is probably about the times of its being in waste in the long history, or just a prediction.

The seventh describes many things he has never experienced. Seemingly, it is a rubbing from the future.

19

How come a stele foretelling the future is inlaid in the wall of the corridor in the garden?

How did this picture come to his desk?  He decides to investigate it in the corridor of steles. Leaving the desk, he puts on his overclothes, and enters the garden. This moment in the garden, the moonlight has already been warded off by the high fence walls, the insects’ shrill sound, fragrance of ink and grass and trees in the air, together with the pavilion, rockery and corridor, liquefy into gel-like fluid in the deep night. He gropes his way in the dark for a long time, but does not find those steles. In the recent years, when too much reading gives him the feeling of being drunk, the situation of getting lost in the garden happens frequently. When he passes by the square-shaped window for the third time, he hears “tinkleâ€?. That is the sound when he receives an email. The square window becomes bright, and he sees the email below.  Â

 Notes: Â

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20

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21

I Think We Will Have to Break Out

The sheriff in Van Horn, Texas Asked me what I was doing in his town.

I am looking for something I am searching for it.

Tatanka lotanka said If you lose something go back and you will find it.

I do not know where I lost it.

They took it away.

I look on the highway, In cities, Dangerous small towns.

In the desert I turn over every beer can.

I try to read factory smoke,

Books,

Newspapers.

Search through planks stacked Outside the sawmill where the forest was.

In this jail, I think they put it in jail.

I think we will have to break out.

22

To create the sculpture, the sculptor must lie down, letting himself slip to the ground gently, slowly, little by little and once he finally lies stretched out, he has to concentrate his attention and efforts on his own body which pressed against the earth, allows him to see and feel the things of the earth against his skin.

Then he can spread out his arms to delight fully in the coolness of the ground and achieve the degree of stillness required to produce the sculpture.

Here immobility becomes the most evident and active condition; every motion, every thought, every will to action is superfluous and undesirable in that state of calm and slow sinking without jerking movements, and words, and unnatural actions which would only lead to jarring from the happily achieved position.

The sculptor penetrates... and the line of the horizon approaches his eyes.

When he finally feels the lightness in his head, the cold of the earth splits him into halves and lets him read clearly and precisely the point dividing the part of his body which belongs to the emptiness of the sky from the part which is of the fullness of the earth. This is when the sculpture comes into being.

(1968)

| 23 |

A garden on the Tropic of Capricorn A garden, an enclosed space, a space that excludes and includes, the territory of knowledge and awareness, the space of a cloister or a plot of tilled land, a place for flowers, for vegetables, for perfumes, for flavours, a place of wonders, of work.

What becomes of a work conceived in the Alps and placed on a volcano in the Tropics?

Three hectares of land, all wonderful, but of that special sort of wonder that is in all pieces of land where a spirit floats.

A path to trace, a limited space to be conceived as a single work A path that amplifies the space, that celebrates nature without distorting it, that makes it possible to see the artworks.

I have seen the forest in the morning sun, in the light of dusk, in the warm haze that envelops it and allows it to exist in its uniqueness.

I have seen the secret battle among Calumet, Bois Maigre, Branle vert, Catafaille, Mahot, Tamarin, Chage écorse, Bois de corail, Gros Bois d’oiseaux, Fanjan, Affouche, Bois de fleur jaune, Mapou, Persil marron, Bois de négresse, Bois de fer, Tan rouge, Lingue en arbre, Equisetum L., Bois de savon, Ananas marron, Cannelle marron...

I have seen Tamarins broken and knocked down by cyclones rise up again and come back to life.

I have seen orchids bloom in the air.

I have seen the Fanjan open up its spirals as water swirls I have seen the white crosses placed on the platform of black rocks in memory of the fishermen carried off by the waves of the Indian Ocean, those waves that open up in he same way as the Fanjan leaf.

I have seen the fluidity of the stone moving like the waves of the ocean.

I have seen the structure of a river in the lava flows.

I have seen the flowing of a tree in the shape of a river.

I have seen the path of man in the shape of a tree.

The force of gravity is an obscure thing.

Yield to it and we are buried.

React to it – and with what, if not with light? – and we have life.

In either case, the form of the material that opposes or yields to it is the same.

It is always the form of a river, a tree, a lava flow, of the flow of blood in the veins or of the path of a man who climbs up a mountain and hikes it, with ant-like obstinacy, in two directions.

| 24 |

It is a rising terrain, full of ravines, furrowed by the fury of cyclone waters that have sculpted the basalt on which it is based.

Let’s act in opposition to the waters, let’s escape the force of gravity that draws things into the sea, let’s make a road, a path.

Let’s start from the bottom and move upwards.

Let’s climb up gradually to the rising ridge: here is the highest point, smooth, secure.

It isn’t just a road, it is much more, it is a form of great culture to travel the land in its highest points.

All ancient mountain routes are like this.

They are the shortest stretch, of course, but also the most beautiful ones: they are made to be travelled on foot.

The structure of the tree for the garden offers many advantages.

It fits in with the territory. Being situated in the centre of the land and growing from the bottom upwards, it indicates an ascending path that is more stimulating than a path that cuts across.

You climb up from the square following a tangle of small paths like a tangle of roots.

The road then enters the forest keeping its position on the ridge.

Paths leading to the artworks branch off on either side of the road and wind away.

The paths, like tree branches, never intersect and must be travelled in two directions.

This amplifies the space and isolates the artworks even though they are near each other.

A few meters are enough for the eyes to separate things in a dense forest and this creates architectural spaces on a human scale.

Travelling in two directions will increase the length of the walk, thus making up for the small territorial extension.

Retracing your steps allows greater reflection and the chance to discover unnoticed things to be observed in a new light.

Finding yourself back on the central trunk after every deviation gives you a sense of direction and prevents that subtle anxiety that a labyrinthine path provokes, impeding reflection.

(1994)

| 25 |

The garden begins when a man tramples the soil and steps into the space of the vegetable, the mineral. His action marks the ground and even the lower layers of life that his step encounters memorize his presence.

The shrubs pushed aside by a force different from the wind, the detached leaves, the broken twigs, the grasses folded over and crushed, and the minuscule invisible animal life disturbed by theå steps — all bear witness to man’s passing and recall his path. The senses are harmonized by the perception of these innumerable small events, by the reflection and wonder which accompanies one who walks with his eyes turned to the earth while his thoughts are suspended, imbued with the sky...

From that moment on, the memory of his presence is laid down in the place.

The systematic organization of this memory, its structuring, the desire to ritualize the path, its repetition generates the garden.

The garden recalls the amazement, the sensations that the original action caused; it brings back to mind the wonder of the colours, of the soil, of the sky reflected on the grass, of the shadow of the branches on the ground revealing the continuous flow of the soil’s humours. Raising your eyes the images absorbed from the soil are projected into the sky and the earthly thoughts rest on a horizon written with trees and shrubs by men working over the centuries. The infinite expanse of blades of grass in a meadow, the smell of moss and dusty branches and trampled leaves, the atmosphere of light patterned by foliage, insects and birds in flight — all these become the carpet on which the act of living reposes.

The way the path of the vegetation community is organized in the garden reflects the culture, the society, and the economy that has generated it.

The microcosm that is created around a life spent entirely in communion with a small space reflects the secrets, the anxieties, the hopes and the resignation or the acceptance of the passage of time tied to the continuous changing of the light on the ground. The genesis of the garden lies in the mystery and in the order of the reality surrounding us; it is in the magic of life and in the wonder that its manifestations arouse.

It is important to set the boundaries of the garden to indicate the place and create its identity. Its delimitation generates its exclusion and in the exclusion the values of the mysterious, the sacred and the enchanted are created.

Enclosing the garden concentrates in that space the idea of the “genius loci”, of the secret forces that allow the organization of life, hence the idea and the concept of the sacred wood, the natural temple.

The garden path is always a path of initiation, a revelatory experience enhanced by the atavistic disorientation that occurs when one enters the shrubbery where points of reference are lost and attention is focused on details, on sudden and unexpected appearances, on sounds, on slices of light, on shadows.

It is an initiation perceived only by one who is prepared for the experience of an osmosis with the things, with the landscape. When you enter the labyrinth of gardens, it is easy to get lost in the forms, in the colours, in the perfumes, in the sounds of its lands and waters and it is wonderful to lose your way.

(2002)

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At any effort to break away from the ground The step obeys the dull, constant, sleepless weight of the body it bends the blades of grass, sinks gravel into the ground, presses dust into dust, it covers the ground in its shadow, then uncovers it, restoring it to light.

The power of attraction that light has on insects which will burn their wings in the flame is the same force that entices our gaze, a gaze that obeys the enchantment of life which develops in space in the form of growing vegetation stretching upward in search of light.

The step, the weight, the light; in steps we walk the space in search of light step after step we approach the sleepless weight of the ground.

(2009)

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objet trouvé da i n t y day – g l o

s ta r b r i g h t t e m p tat i o n t r o p i c a l f i r e

fimo f a n c y f l u o r e s c e n t p e ac h

ar t i f i c i al l an d s cap e s r e a l s i l k r as p b e r r y r i p p l e

flower buyer n i r va n a f i r e b a l l

d e s i g n m as t e r p i n k p l u m e d aq ua b l o s s o m

SHIT AND THE SPANIARDS AND THE CANAL FROM HELL* (AS KNOWN AS RIO DE LA COMPAÑÍA) *(according to Newsweek magazine) The problems, both physically and conceptually, that most Europeans had with the concept of bathing, clean clothing and hygiene in general and their (non) disposal methods of sewage in the 16th century at the time of the colonization of the Americas are well documented.

The first colonizers arriving with Cortés were so impressed with the cleanliness of the indigenous towns that they passed through in Mexico and how often the people bathed that they mentioned it in their diaries.

Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Mexicas, was in a bay in Lake Texcoco surrounded by volcanoes and before colonization had a careful sewage removal system. Human excrement was collected in sludge rafts and then sold to be used as fertilizer in the fields on the mainland, while urine would be taken to the leather factories away from the city. All of that changed with the defeat of Tenochtitlán by the Spaniards who not only proceeded to shit in the lake but began to pull down the indigenous palaces, temples and homes and used them to fill in the lake. They also started to drain the lakes which had surrounded Tenochtitlán, even those with fresh water.

Until 1890, the Spanish and their descendents were sending all the raw sewage of the city to what remained of Lake Texcoco. But when the water level was high because of the accumulation on the lake bed of alluvial material that would surge down from the mountains due to deforestation, the sewage would back up and saturate the soil under the houses and streets of the city. This not only did not smell nice, but it caused diseases resulting in the highest death rate in the “civilized” world: there were forty deaths per one thousand people.

As the Spanish increased throughout the land they also used rivers for raw sewage and converted them into open canals to facilitate the flow. One such is the twenty-nine kilometers long Compania River in Chalco in the State of Mexico, that originates on the side of the Iztacihuatl volcano and receives water from the Sierra Nevada then discharges it into the General Canal which itself discharges into

34

the former Lake Texcoco. Iñigo Noriega, a Spaniard, converted the river to the Compania Canal, which connected to the Grand Canal, to assist in the desiccation of Lake Chalco. This open-air canal has the distinction of being nominated the “Canal from Hell” by Newsweek magazine. It is the conduit for the industrial waste of several factories: the San Jose and Heda paper mills, the Volcanes smelting factory, the Akzo Nobel chemical company, the Los Reyes carton paper mill, the La Paz and ABC Los Reyes slaughterhouses and a Yakult plant, along with the domestic waste of ten municipalities with a population of five million people.

Traditional Spanish colonial deep drainage lets 90% of the water of the Mexico Basin Valley escape.

Today, Mexico City is thirsty.

By 1900, the Spanish and their descendants’ enthusiasm for the destruction of the environment accumulated in the building of one big canal called the Grand Canal (Gran Canal del Desagüe) which would not only drain the city of its waters and solve flooding but also move its sewage problem somewhere else. Roberto Gayol, the engineer hired

by Iñigo Noriega and who was responsible for the desiccation of Lake Chalco, became the Engineer of Mexico City and Engineer of the Board of Health.

He was enthusiastic about the complete draining of Lake Texcoco.

He designed the system for the removal of sewage and storm waters (and he did not think it was worthwhile to separate the two) which would require the fresh water from the Lakes of both Xochimilco and Chalco to flush the sewers of Mexico City. The resulting sludge was sent to the Mezquital Valley in the neighboring province of Hidalgo, where the Otomi indigenous people live and it became their problem. These fetid waters are supposed to be used only for the irrigation of animal forage but since fruits and vegetables sell at a higher price in Mexico City, contaminated food products are returning to the source of contamination.

As springs and lakes could not recharge from natural sources, which were now being quickly removed by the big canal, they dried up. Wells were

dug all over Mexico City to bring up potable ground water. Roberto Gayol would admit that as a result of the excessive pumping of the underground aquifer and the building of the Grand Canal, Mexico City was sinking, thus causing damage to the hydraulic system, buildings and other infrastructure. Wells in Mexico City were closed in the 1950s, but it was too late to stop the land subsidence.

The domestic waste of a total of twenty-six housing developments that house 383,965 inhabitants in the sub-basin is not treated and flows directly into rivers, and ravines.

Only 7% of the wastewater in Mexico City receives treatment and that is only primary treatment.

Everyday, eighty tons of human faecal dust joins everything else that is floating in the air of Mexico City.

In the 1960s, the Deep Sewerage System (Drenaje Profundo) was built to carry yet more water out of the basin, but it became damaged because of complications arising from the Grand Canal not working properly because of land subsidence.

P.S. It is interesting to see that markets in Mexico that are located in areas which remain indigenous are clean and neat while those in areas with mostly Spanish descendents are horribly dirty (see the markets in Mexico City and/or Cuernavaca and compare them to those in Oaxaca). Have you noticed what the floors of bars in Madrid look like after cocktail hour? The Spanish, when questioned about this custom, claim it shows their “exuberance of life”.

The draining of the lakebed in Mexico City also resulted in earthquakes having a more severe effect there than previously and therefore causing yet further damage to the pipes for sewage and potable water. Shit and water continue to mix liberally; a Spanish legacy.

Important Note: Roberto Gayol is also the author of “Two Problems of Vital Importance to Mexico: colonization and the development of irrigation”, 1906. Gayol proposed to redraw Mexican agriculture through modernization by putting emphasis on the colonization of new lands with European peasants whom he believed to have “superior economic characteristics and a vigorous mentality, a robust physical constitution and because their work habits and economy are capable of generating progress in new countries.” In other words, he did not like indigenous workers or farmers and wanted their fertile hands in the hands of Europeans. It seems his descendents today continue not to like indigenous peoples. They, like most of the descendents of Europeans living in Mexico, feel that the indigenous peoples impede the economic progressive of Mexico. We only have to look at the disastrous ecological results of Spanish (and their descendents) management and “progress” in the TlahuacXico sub-basin to know the full extent of the difficult future that awaits the residents of Mexico.

In the 1980s, fourteen pumping stations were constructed to remove the waters of Tlahuac and Chalco to Mexico City, but the aquifer was not able to recharge fast enough to make up for the high rate of extraction. This led to land subsidence resulting in the Compania Canal rising twelve meters above land level. Bad maintenance has led to cracks and severe floods in 2000 and 2010 that left entire neighborhoods under the fetid waters for weeks resulting not only in damage to homes, buildings and infrastructure but also in gastrointestinal, skin and water-borne diseases among the local population. Many neighborhoods were affected and over the years, thousands of homes also.

The response from the government was to build yet another drainage tunnel, the Compania Tunnel, which because of land subsidence has within a short time started to sag in the middle and will eventually lead to blockage of the tunnel. Already in 2011, blockage of the small opening on street level for capturing storm waters resulted in yet another severe flood.

Not only does the Treatment Plant for Residual Waters in Xico and Chalco have zero efficiency in its treatment of the local sewage water but when the area floods, the pumps that would bring the raw sewage to the canals cease to work. The new urban developments built on top of what had been Xico Island have not been obligated to put in treatment facilities and sewage not only streams down to Chalco Valley during the rainy season but accumulates in the emerging Lake Chalco.

35

CHZ a conversation London, Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon, October 16th 2011

PP

CHZ stands for “Continuously Habitable Zone”, which I think is what we were trying to do together, trying to find a place to build. I am interested in this idea of automation and thinking about the exhibition as a living organism. There is a related question of what if an image or an object survives its exhibition? It is a bit like the Frankenstein novel where the monster leaves the castle and gets to live a normal life. The beast is released and may live or may die. So all of these ideas are about the creation of an image that survives its own exhibition or presentation. Maybe some of you saw my show at the Serpentine where there was this film called The Boy From Mars, which was an attempt to link architecture to a film or, put differently, to produce a film which produces its own reality. So I worked at that time with the architect François Roche, and we tried to make a two-headed beast, one head being the architecture project and one being the film, but one needed the other to exist. So without the film, the architecture could not be built and without the architecture the film had nothing to shoot.

The Boy from Mars left an abandoned shelter that keeps working, that generates its own energy when people are not around. So after a long night at a bar in Brussels with Bas, we came up with the idea to produce something a bit more abstract and this time to link a film to a territory. CHZ is another kind of monster. The landscape produces a film and the film produces a landscape. It sets up the possibility where dwarf stars would cause a photosynthesis which would produce black plants. And it left a kind of tropical planet colonized by humans. CHZ is a kind of fictional zone that sets up a world where a film can literally generate life.

BS

From the beginning it was clear that we were not going to make a movie about a landscape. We wanted to create a landscape that could only exist in a movie. That was actually what Philippe asked me to help him with and I was quite puzzled by that. I am used to making landscapes and I am used to people making photographs of that landscape, but making a landscape that would only exist in a movie was something very strange. It even became stranger because there was not one site but we were actually given five sites in two countries: three allotment gardens in Stuttgart and two bigger territories in Porto. I was a bit lost in the beginning because I tried to make a landscape that could be filmed, but that was not the question. So actually the liberating moment came when I just did what I always do, which is to make a precise reading of the territory, trying to reveal the unseen landscape of those sites and really trying to come to the essence of each site. We did this through a number of visits and a number of discussions. Then came the next question: how to make one single territory out of five distinct sites that are not even adjacent to each other but are located in two different countries? And there again, there were many, many discussions and many, many workshops where we kept trying to combine the sites, to find an essential landscape made out of those five different sites. It was quite difficult.

We made a series of models and tried out different schemes, and actually, there was a kind of break through when I understood that we had to work, not with plans, but with sections because a section is a lot closer to the sequence of a movie. Out of those five sites we tried to make one single exemplary landscape. We were looking for an archetypal landscape that precedes any other landscape. By combining the characteristics of each of those five sites we tried to make this exemplary landscape. We then made a precise technical section with the exact characteristics of each site that helped us conceive this new territory based on the section and not on the plan.

Then again, something strange happened because we decided not to use the five sites but only one single site, while keeping the characteristics of each site that we had revealed. For example, for the site with the valley we enhanced this feeling of a valley by making a mineral river. On the site with the slopes we made vegetal steps to reveal the contour lines of the hillside and on the planted plateau we made a horizontal path marking the border between a deserted area and the forested area. We tried to reveal the landscape of each of these sites and since we didn’t have five sites anymore but only one, we tried to re-enact those characteristics on one single site. So in a way, through our interventions the five initial sites found their place on one single site. It was very surprising because, for example, the riverbed finally found its location on top of the hill, which is also flat, because that just worked better

43

with the site. Another example, we took the Stuttgart slopes and tried to find them in Porto. It made the whole project weirder and weirder, but in a way more consistent. In the end it became a kind of imaginary, exemplary landscape.

We uprooted 35 metre high trees to expose their roots and to show how a tree is anchored in the landscape. We burnt quite a big territory to reveal yet another kind of landscape that wasn’t seen, but sprang up after the burning. We brought in big machines to make the horizontal paths to abruptly change and expose the typography of the existing landscape. We also used a big quantity of natural stones from a local quarry to create this exemplary landscape.

PP

Bas talks about sites or perspectives and I talk about sequences. So it was, in fact, six sites and six sequences so that at the end, yes, we ended up with this very weird construction. We start with an opening scene which is a discovery shot of a burned landscape, a carbon filled landscape. The next scene is an inverted topiary. It is bushes that aren’t cut from the outside but cut out from the inside. Then there is a mineral river. It is still but the movement of the camera makes it move. Then there is a black desert which is burning hot but without the presence of any sun. After, there is a vegetal staircase where the plants communicate with each other architectonically. And finally there are tree roots where we dug down around the trees to reveal them. So the gestures were burning, cutting, scratching and digging.

These different sequences became the markers of this territory design, and in a weird way, you can see the logic within the land, but you can’t really grab the logic. It’s a bit like when you read Alice in Wonderland: you know that it is not only about having a lot of imagination; there is something behind it. And I guess we arrived at the final idea when we wrote the statement together, which was to try to have something that works in two different realms or two different worlds: the 2 + 1 dimension of the movie and the 3 + 1 dimension of the world.

BS

PP

Soon after we came up with this, how do you call it, design or schema, I started to make some drawings in order to produce what you do when you make a film, which is a storyboard, so I made some drawings to give to the art director and cinematographer. That will be the roots scene, that will be the inverted topiary scene, that will be the mineral river scene, that will be the roots again, that will be the opening shot and that will be another one of these black plants growing within the roots of the trees. That was a vegetal staircase. Again the mineral river. Some drawings. And that’s the reality of the shooting of the film, isn’t it? Which is weird because it is reality when it is a picture, but it is also a picture that is real. This is one of the scenes. I am still currently editing the picture so I can’t really tell you how it is going to end, but these are some of the pictures that we will definitely use in the film.

This is the inverted topiary scene where the camera basically goes down the rabbit hole, like that. This is what became the mineral river, which is basically the camera moving around this river, but you can’t really figure out its scale. This is the desert scene that leads you to this darkness. Everything is really dark. That’s the staircase and that’s the roots where the black plants grow in between.

BS

PP

Philippe wanted me to plant only black plants, so I went to do research on black plants.

We found many black plants, but they were not black enough, so during the film I sprayed them black, which again is rather odd, but creates this kind of imaginary landscape that has a peculiar physical reality.

What is particularly interesting is that the final image of our landscape was drawn by a registered land surveyor in Portugal. He went on site and recorded very precisely the different interventions that we made on the territory. This physical reality, in the end, is made up of fragments of an imaginary landscape that is trying to be exemplary. I think what was really interesting for everyone involved was that a landscape intervention became a set design to then become a film to then maintain a physical reality on site and have a reality of its own outside of the film and the whole landscape story behind it.

So now what is happening to the project is that we are going to finish editing and then add the sound.

The sound has become more and more important in my films. It comes from this idea that the film should be experienced like a ride in an amusement park. So the picture would offer a physical experience. We used seismographic and geodesic microphones. We also collected and recorded data from a seismographic observation centre in Porto.We decided to work with infrabass sound that is conducted through solids, so we planted the microphones in the garden. We sped up these inaudible frequencies, so that the sounds do not come through the air but through the land. The land itself becomes like a big microphone. After that we will go back to the land and finish the garden since it is a place people can visit. At the end, when the film will be presented at the Beyeler Foundation next year, these two objects will coexist. In fact, they share the same body – the one that exists in Porto as a kind of weird fantasy and its image as a film.

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A GARDEN INDEX (SELECTED WORDS FROM AN ACTIVITY)

From texts written by me starting in 1973, I have selected a series of words, ideas, subjects or brief phrases referring to activities I did for exteriors.

From 1973 to 1981, I investigated the possibilities of comparing art with agriculture (in the form of vegetable gardens, cultivations, animal raising), price with use and exchange values, artistic product with farm produce.

In the mid 1980s, I started designing a garden in spaces (about 4 hectares) where, since 1973, I had done experiments between art and agriculture.

The words, taken from the texts and thus removed from the narration they were part of, are given back to the reader in brief lists – in order to imagine, starting from them, not only “my” garden but a hypothetical personal garden.

Building and caring for your own garden (be it large, small, outside, inside, on your balcony, in the form of a bonsai or a potted plant, perhaps created by “appropriating” a public space through such simple, daily actions as walking and gazing, for example) means adding to everyone’s daily actions or functions what I recently defined a “coefficient”: an element or gain that acts alongside and adds to what we normally do and think – the garden as a joint agent.

I collected the words in lists referring to spatial, temporal, mental, or practical (actions that a garden requires) aspects.

»» 52

»» Choosing an exterior or an interior space »» Planting couples of different kinds of trees »» Seen: far or near? »» Landscape and horizons of words »» Up and down »» Entering the underworld »» Who is the owner of the mountains? »» Earthquakes and geophysics »» De­-territorialization »» A possible archaeology of weekly cosmologies »» The earth and the void »» Meteorological conditions: winter, spring, summer, autumn, cold, cloudy–rain, sunny–rain, warm »» Subterranean absence of time »» Adaptability to meteorological change »» Rhythms of daily and seasonal work »» Discontinuity may be illogical but economical »» Under the rain a field is no longer a field but a viscous – muddy – seawhere »» In nature itself nothing is predictable, in either the short or the long term »» Occupying the untilled lands destined to speculation »» Political significance of the actions »» Putting agriculture, animal husbandry and gardening on the same level as art making »» Signing works of art as a joint stock company »» Rearing sheep and cattle »» Frozen or preserved food production in country style »» The house and the garden in a (mental) perspective »» Do not underestimate oneiric materials and messages

»» The carpet: the desert nomad’s garden »» The mind as a garden »» Building virtual three-dimensional spaces on the garden surface »» Chinese tradition — bamboo — and the meaning of “pause in space” (limit) »» A “Wire House”: a “garden” nomadic structure remembering the Jewish Succoth shelter »» Preparation, maintenance and constant care of a lawn-garden »» A garden as a place of food production »» The garden nurtures memory, feelings and imagination (an inner exercise) »» Identifications: a garden on which ideas and feelings could grow and die just like grass, shrubs and trees »» A lawn requires a right balance of seeds, but the stronger one prevails »» Choice of trees to be planted in the lawn-garden (gingko, palm, birch, walnut, almond, apple, olive, chestnut, poplar?) »» Care and restoration of the wild wood »» Creation of a “horizon” as part of the landscape »» Giving a name to single places in the garden »» The battle against ivy »» Personal relationship with the insect (an example: wasps) »» A football team of flies »» Recording of nocturnal bird calls »» The political uses of astonishment »» The burial of bread, art works and objects in the garden »» The statistical landscape »» Agriculture and food: exchange value and use value in agriculture and art »» Color variations between spring and autumn: films, videos, photos

»» The role of mud »» Discourse on fire and ashes »» Digging deep into the earth »» Labyrinth, labyrinthine structures in the garden »» Subterranean doors and clandestine tunnels.

Perception of the prison constriction »» A greenhouse for each feeling »» How to restore the family-flesh-carpet »» The presence of dogs as background noise »» Cardboard forests with fruits and birds »» The father tree, the mother tree »» Palm leaves and the Killer parasite »» Types of palms in the “garden of the Sphinx” »» Palms versus oaks »» Trees and wood in the “I Ching” »» The tree that swallows a nylon rope: the Grimm brothers and reality »» Agricultural exercises for a reconciliation with womanhood »» Living on animal produce (bees, sheep, duck, chicken, etc.) »» To look at a harvest of sugar beets or potatoes as a hypothetical ready-made »» The “rhizome” grows without apparent symmetry »» Establishing horizontal connections between contradictory moments of daily living

These schemes can also be applied to almost all of the spheres of not entirely alienated human activity.

If the motives and modalities of this “ GARDEN INDEX” offer suggestions for other experiences, it might one day form the first outline of a “practical survival manual” for “garden adepts.”

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Credits page 7 Alison Knowles

A Wild Garden of Poets © Alison Knowles page 8 Qiu Zhijie Seven Gardens

© Qiu Zhijie page 18

Jimmie Durham I Think We Will Have to Break Out © Jimmie Durham

page 19

Giuseppe Penone © Giuseppe Penone

page 24

Anna Blessmann and Peter Saville TVBlumen for Paesaggio 2012 © Anna Blessmann and Peter Saville

page 30

María Thereza Alves excerpt from El regreso de un lago / The Return of the Lake, 2012 © María Thereza Alves

page 32 Silke Otto-Knapp For the ‘Garden Marathon’ taking place at the Serpentine Gallery in

London in October 2011 I invited the interior designer Melissa

North to read excerpts from her great great Aunt’s autobiography:

Recollections of a Happy Life, Being the Autobiography of Marianne

North, 1894. Marianne North (1830-1890) was a Victorian painter,

traveller and naturalist. She travelled the globe covering most

continents from 1870-1890 in order to document a huge variety of

landscapes and plant species in her exuberant paintings. In her lifetime

a gallery was build on the grounds of the Kew Botanic Gardens in

London where the works can still be viewed today.

© Silke Otto-Knapp page 39

Philippe Parreno and Bas Smets Transcript of the intervention at the Garden Marathon held at the Serpentine Gallery in London on October 16th 2011. © Philippe Parreno and Bas Smets

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page 41

Gerry Bibby P.S. No Picnic (A Promenade of The Hearts), 2012 Including transcripts from the performance of No Picnic (A Promenade of The Hearts), Oct. 12–15, 2011.

Documented performance at The Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon.

Oct. 15, 2011, performed by Sophie and Gerry Bibby, accessible by following the link http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2011/08/garden_marathon.html © Gerry Bibby

pag 48

Gianfranco Baruchello A Garden Index (Selected Words from an Activity) © Gianfranco Baruchello

n

Blauer Hase whishes to thank also: Cornelia Lauf, Vittorio Cavallini

and Enrico Vezzi for their inspiration and support.

Editing: Blauer Hase

Proofreading and translations: Enrica Serafini, Jane Elizabeth Read

Paesaggio’s graphic blueprint was conceived in 2010 by Giulia Marzin

Design: Blauer Hase

Blauer Hase is: Mario Ciaramitaro - Riccardo Giacconi - Daniele Zoico

Published by:

MER. Paper Kunsthalle www.merpaperkunsthalle.org Distributed by: Exhibitions International www.exhibitionsinternational.be

© 2012 Blauer Hase for his edition © 2012 MER. Paper Kunsthalle for his edition

ISBN: 978-94-9069-359-6 Depot: D/2012/7852/132

Cover image “Penguin” is taken from the public domain book: Animal Life: In The Sea and On The Land by Sarah Cooper, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1887

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n Paesaggio a project by Blauer Hase www.blauerhase.com Published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle Geldmunt 36 B-9000 Gent www.merpaperkunsthalle.org Distributed by: Exhibitions International Kol. Begaultlaan 17 B-3012 Leuven www.exhibitionsinternational.org Š MER. Paper Kunsthalle for this edition