Reise und Heimkehr / Journey and Homecoming

This two-part work marks the beginning and end of a historic oak-lined road and is made from trees that once grew there. The road leads from Gut Holzhausen to the forest, drawing the main axis through the farm complex and serving as the start of the Nieheimer Kunstpfad. The trees along the route date back up to 500 years. Relics of those that have been cut down over the years can still be found on either side of the road, with some that have remained in place for decades. The two weathered trunks that were used for these sculptures also remain largely as they were found. Pointing towards each other from a distance, only the ends of the trunks were modified in this work. Now, they appear to be parts of an interlocking plug system made up of a seemingly random arrangement of projecting and recessed surfaces on a square grid. In turn, the patterns on the trunks correlate with each other, so that the surfaces could theoretically be joined together. It is as if the two trunks were magnets at the edge of their force field – close enough to make their connection palpable, but far enough to prevent them from being able to reconnect. The viewer can only visualize them united. Pedestrians walk down the road and back each day, which is interpreted more universally here as a journey and homecoming. This concept is expressed by another aspect of the design: the part of the sculpture near the forest – the “journey” – rests on top of three steel T-beams; despite the trunk’s actual immovability, the beams are indicative of human intervention and suggest that the sculpture’s position is temporary and changeable. “Homecoming,” its counterpart near the manor house, remains directly on the ground where it was found – as if it had grown that way. This contrast allows us to consider notions of the separate and the connected, the attraction of opposite poles, and the relationship between man and nature.

http://gut-holzhausen.de/kultur/kunstpfad