ROSE RED, GRASS GREEN, QUINCE YELLOW BOTANIC MYSTERIES IN THE WÜRTH COLLECTION
12 MARCH–5 NOVEMBER 2023
KUNSTHALLE WÜRTH | SCHWÄBISCH HALL, GERMANY
Anselm Kiefer, The Four Elements, 1997/2011 Woodcut, painted, mounted on canvas, 435 x 255 cm Würth Collection, Inv. 17381
Gathering around a selection of 170 works by 70 prominent modern and contemporary artists, the exhibition unravels a range of unexpected botanic mysteries in the Würth Collection. A floral richness and diversity revealed by magnificent bouquets (Lovis Corinth, Gabriele Münter, Emil Nolde), blossoming meadows (Philipp Bauknecht, Franz Marc, Alex Katz), enchanted artists’ gardens (Per Kirkeby, Andy Warhol), painstakingly archived “herbariums" (Herman de Vries), and dystopian worlds (Marc Quinn, Anselm Kiefer).
All these works testify to the artists’ involvement with the botanic realm but also document a continuously evolving cultural change of meaning. It recalls to the viewer that human life wouldn’t exist without plants as they not only produce the oxygen we need to breathe, but also provide food and raw materials used for clothing and medication. Part of our daily lives, plants and flowers are invested with multiple symbolic qualities in addition to offering visual and olfactory pleasure.
In addition, the Tokyo flower artist Azuma Makoto designed a plant sculpture from local flowers. Over the course of the exhibition, it blossoms, wilts and revives, conveying, apart from the idea of vanitas, the harmonies and abstractions of Japanese floral art.
