the nature of nature. fukushima project

Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt. 14.05 - 27.11.2022

At first sight, Norbert Schoerner’s photographs seem like studies of individual pine trees standing out against a barren, mountainous landscape of undulating peaks and dark cloud formations. However, closer inspection reveals something unusual. Instead of being rooted in the ground, the trunks of the pine trees end in receptacles reminiscent of the ceramic bowls typically used for growing bonsai trees.

The bonsais in Norbert Schoerner’s photographs were cultivated by the Abe family, who live near Fukushima and have been growing bonsai from seed for three generations. These seeds stem exclusively from tree species found in the shade of the volcanic mountain Azuma-Kofuji.

To create these photographs, Schoerner climbed the mountain and took a series of landscape shots. Placed in front of large-scale prints of these pictures and photographed in the right light, the Abe family’s miniature pines look like fully grown trees. By photographing the bonsais in constructed dioramic surroundings, the artist seems to be returning the plants to their origins so that they can reach their true growth potential.

Instead of focusing on the confinement of the trees, what shines through is their liberation, which would be consistent with a romanticized notion of nature. On the other hand, through the restriction, Schoerner pays tribute to the events that unfolded on the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. It is impossible to view these works without considering the ecological effects of the catastrophe that occurred in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on 11 March 2011. The green glow that appears in the sequence of chromatic images, created when residual light meets the optics of a night-vision camera, helps Schoerner evoke imaginative images that not only showcase presence, but also embody presence themselves. These images make the invisible, omnipresent radiation visible.

“Within the small universe formed by the tree in its bowl, miniaturised as it is, the infinitely greater reality of nature is contained. This art form strives to enclose not the shape alone, but rather the entire potential of nature itself in the small bonsai.”

*Another Monster of Nature,* Prof. Shinichi Nakazawa

“In the face of the technological advances which gave rise to atomic energy, art quietly intones a different song. Among the forefront of this movement are, interestingly enough, the bonsai artists both from Japan and abroad, who are (or were) based in Fukushima. Their artistic activity is the driving force behind the exhibition The Nature of Nature: Fukushima Project. Viewed this way, their work, for all its seriousness and without being heavy-handed, has a humorous touch to it, precisely as if the little bonsai were standing up to an atomic reactor.

This is where the two absolutely opposite views of nature confront each other: the ideal of completely liberating the forces of nature and the idea of locking the power of nature inside behind many walls and thus trying to regulate it. People would surely laugh at me if I were to say that the ideal of nature represented by bonsai points to the future. To which I can only reply: Haven’t humorous notions, which were mocked when first voiced, time and again saved mankind?”

Another Monster of Nature, Prof. Shinichi Nakazawa

“It is worth reflecting on the lengthy, finely calibrated, and almost ritualistic process by which Schoerner’s im
ages were achieved in-camera, evidence of his complicated attachment to the physical craft of his medium in the age of Photoshop.”
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*There Will Come Soft Rains*, Tom Morton

“Some 140 years after Jules Verne’s Le Rayon vert and 35 years after Éric Rohmer’s 1986 feature film of the same name, the green glow is another: a sequence of chromatic images with a green glow, which is created when residual light hits the optics of a night vision camera. Images of imagination that not only present presence but create presence themselves. Images in which the invisible, omnipresent radiation become visible.”

Unfulfilled Promises, Prof. Matthias Wagner K

To see the catalogue please click here

Norbert Schoerner
The Nature of Nature. Fukushima Project

Director
Prof. Matthias Wagner K

Curatorial assistant
Julia Psilitelis

Photographic assistant
Keiichi Shirakawa

Projection management
Dayfornightlab Studio, Lucas Bullens

Grading
Elisa Franceschi

Creative consultant
Juanita Boxill

Film editor
Lucas Bullens

Sound design
Ferdinand Grätz

Illustrations
Kurakichi Abe
Lucas Bullens

Framing
Eduard Klein

Printing and mounting
Humme Leipzig

Producers
Masashi Nagai
Ryo Nemeth

Art direction, Graphic design
Jasmin Kress

Exhibition management
David Beikirch

Restoration
Kathrin Röttger

Exhibition construction
Messegrafik & Messebau Schreiber, Burkhard Dämmer

Film, sound and projection technology
satis&fy AG, Markus Berger

Translations
Nora Bierich
Aimée Ducey-Gessner
Matthew Königsberg
Anke Mai

Bibliothek
Claudia Hohmann

Registrar
Isabelle Kollig

Create – Museum Education
Ann-Katrin Spieß, Xenia Kitaeva, Hannah Glaser