{"id":4374,"date":"2018-04-05T16:17:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visionquest.it\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2018-06-20T16:12:50","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T16:12:50","slug":"claudius-schulze-state-of-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visionquest.it\/index.php\/2018\/04\/05\/claudius-schulze-state-of-nature\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Claudius Schulze
State of Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opening reception: Saturday April\u00a014th, 2018 from 6.00 pm<\/p>\n

Duration: April 17th-\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0June 16th,\u00a02018<\/sup>
\nLocation: VisionQuesT 4rosso \u2013\u00a0\u00a0Contemporary photography.\u00a0Piazza Invrea 4 r, 16123 Genova, Italy
\n+39 010 2464203 \u2013 +39 335 6195394
\nHrs: from Tuesday to Saturday 3 pm \u2013 7 pm and by appointment.\u00a0Tuesday, April 24th the Gallery will be closed.<\/span>
\nWeb site: www.visionquest.it
\nInfomation and e-mail: \u00a0 info@visionquest.it<\/p>\n

The artist will be present.<\/p>\n

“The picturesque is the domestication of nature into a landscaped park. The picturesque reduces nature to the pleasant and consumable\u201d,\u00a0William Gilpin.<\/p>\n

VisionQuesT 4rosso is pleased to present for the first time in Italy the solo exhibition by Claudius SCHULZE \u201cState of Nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

To what extent has human protection against natural calamities become part of the European landscape? Claudius Schulze has travelled about 50.000 km across Europein his van with a \u201ccherry picker\u201d platform lifting him and his 4×5 large format field camera, photographing what appear to be beautiful, picturesque landscapes, sweeping panoramic views of places where nature\u2019s beauty has been cleverly engineered to resist disaster.<\/p>\n

In this age of climate change and rising sea levels, affluent cultures in Europe have employed the best and brightest minds in civil engineering to create defenses against natural catastrophes, while striving to create \u201cpicturesque\u201d landscapes that are, in fact, quite unnatural.<\/p>\n

In each of those photographs of idyllic sceneries there is always something not quite perfect…… alpine panoramas are crossed by snow sheds, the North Sea coast like other sandy beaches, are furrowed and protected by breakwaters, menacing dam walls hover above backyard gardens, tunnels cut through mountains like wounds, artificial banks confine mountain rivers and lakes, dominating windmill blades oppose the wind’s energy by turning it into electricity……. All of these defences and barriers become prerequisite to each and everyone of these landscapes: the sunshine sparkles on the surface of the mountain lakes only because it was artificially dammed, the dunes only rise because they are protected against storm surges.<\/p>\n

As Oskar Piegsa says in his essay about this project, \u201cThese photos are not focused on defining the boundary between culture and nature. On the contrary: they show us very clearly how much the two spheres penetrate each other, at least in affluent European countries.\u201d In our present age, the\u00a0Anthropocene, our planet is undergoing rapid warming, erosion, deforestation, ocean acidification, extinction and more.<\/p>\n