Martin Schwenk – Expansion H 75 (2017)

Martin Schwenk (b. Bonn, 1960, lives and works in Düsseldorf) makes sculptures inspired by the natural world. Some resemble curious, exotic plants. Leaves and stems can be recognised in the works, which sometimes stand on the ground and sometimes are installed along walls and hanging from ceilings. Visitors are prompted to reflect upon nature and their own relationship with it.

Other sculptures, judging by their organic structure, could be greatly enlarged bacteria or other micro-organisms. Schwenk’s works are, however, pure fantasy, made of materials that can be bought at a DIY store, such as silicones, polyurethane foam, plaster, polyester and Plexiglas.

For Disruption, Schwenk deposited a load of polyurethane among the trees in the park. This foam rapidly expanded to form a bumpy amorphous expanse of around fifty square metres, which, once dry, was solid enough to walk on. Its yellow colour meant that it could be seen from a distance. This unusual form did not immediately evoke associations with a work of art. It looked more like some kind of eruption or some other geological process taking place within the soil of the park. The material and the colour, however, suggested that chemical waste has been illegally dumped here.

The questions surrounding the origin of the yellow mass reflected this exhibition’s core notion regarding the current Anthropocene geological era: that humans and earth are not separate entities, but instead are closely linked. Did this mass end up at De Oude Warande by some kind of accident, by natural causes, or was it deliberate, through human intervention? Schwenk’s work invited viewers to reflect upon the contrast between the natural and the manmade world. To what extent can we still make this distinction in the modern day?