In 1970, the Austrian artist and architect Max Peintner imagined a small forest contained within a stadium in a drawing titled The Unending Attraction of Nature. In it, a sprawling, smoky, industrial city has subsumed the natural world, and thousands of spectators pack the stadium to look at a few hundred trees.

In Klagenfurt, Austria, a temporary installation by the Swiss curator Klaus Littmann realizes Peintner’s dystopian drawing as FOR FOREST – The Unending Attraction of Nature. The installation, which opened on September 8, 2019, aims to challenge our perception of nature and question its future as deforestation and climate change accelerate in the anthropocene era.

“This project is also a warning. Nature, which we now take for granted, might someday only be found in specially assigned spaces, as is already the case with zoo animals.”

FOR FOREST is comprised of 300 mature trees, 16 species that replicate a local mixed woodland forest, planted in Klagenfurt’s Wörthersee Stadium. The trees are expected to attract wildlife, change colors, and drop leaves on the soccer pitch, and then will be replanted on a site near the stadium to become a living forest sculpture. An adjacent pavilion will document the project and provide an educational space.

It is Austria’s largest public art installation to date – it took 22 days to plant the trees, some of which weigh up to six tons; the stadium has 30,000 seats, it’s open daily until 10pm, and floodlights illuminate the forest for nighttime viewing. Concurrent related events in Klagenfurt include two museum exhibitions, an architecture competition, literary program, film series, opera and theater performances, and public art installations, all on themes of nature and the environment.

While environmental art has become the zeitgeist and Klagenfurt is all-in with complementary programs, FOR FOREST was the subject of unwanted attention from two right-wing political parties in advance of Austria’s recent national election. Their complaints had to do with state funding and “foreign” trees, though the project was privately funded and the trees were (ironically) protested with chainsaws. It’s regrettable that art and the environment could be political targets, but the furor is over and the spectacle of a forest in a stadium has transformed a 49-year-old pencil drawing into a prescient message about the world’s climate emergency.

FOR FOREST – The Unending Attraction of Nature is on view at Wörthersee Stadion through October 27, 2019.

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At the Winter Palace in Vienna, a selection of works by Ólafur Elíasson forms a site-specific exhibition titled Baroque Baroque. More than a dozen works, created during the last twenty years, are installed within the architecture of the 18^th century palace. The contrast of Elíasson’s contemporary works inside grand Baroque staterooms alters perceptions of space and history for an experience that supersedes both.

The Winterpalais was constructed from 1696 to 1724 as a residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy. It is a significant edifice, with embellishments that represent the Prince’s military achievements and the height of Imperial Baroque style. The palace was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in 1736 and later became the seat of several state institutions. It was re-opened to the public in 2013 as a museum for the Belvedere, Prince Eugene’s summer residence, to show the Belvedere’s collections as well as contemporary art.

Baroque Baroque is the first contemporary art monograph at the Winter Palace. Elíasson’s characteristic use of lights, projections, shadows, and mirrors expands spatial awareness of the architecture. In Yellow Corridor an ornate stairway is saturated with yellow light, heightening a sense of the space and the spaces beyond it, and sublimating the details of sculptural reliefs and columns with high contrast.

In Eye See You, a sodium lamp inside a mirror polished bowl emits bright, warm light and reflects the intricate details of the Gold Cabinet stateroom. Surrounded by parquetry, mirrors, and gilded panels, the parabolic light installation provides a single point of focus with solar intensity and gravity. It suggests the cosmological from an intimate scale.

A 30-meter long mirror spans through an enfilade of rooms, with particular effects in each space. In Wishes Versus Wonders, half of a circular brass ring is reflected as a complete circle within a symmetrical space. The ring’s shadow on the parquet floor, 18^th century battle paintings by Ignace Jacques Parrocel, and the viewer, are all reflected back as illusory scenes.

The exhibition is comprised of works loaned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) in Vienna and the Juan and Patricia Vergez Collection in Buenos Aires. TBA21 was founded in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg, whose father was the founder of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Juan Vergez and Patricia Pearson-Vergez are the founders of Tacuarí, a private museum in Buenos Aires.

Baroque Baroque opened at the Winterpalais on November 21 and continues through March 6, 2016.

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