Tagliamento anamnesi di un paesaggio
Herwig Turk Exhibition, Gemona, 2024
intro
Anamnesis of a Landscape: Metabolism and Circulation
Herwig Turk’s artistic research project in the Tagliamento Valley began in early 2017 and was initiated by UNIKUM (University of Klagenfurt). The project has been continuously developed through exhibitions in Klagenfurt in 2018, Vienna and Salzburg in 2021, and Bregenz and Bad Homburg in 2022. Alongside these exhibitions, the work has also been presented internationally at various symposia in recent years, including in Austria, Brazil, Germany and Italy.
The Tagliamento, as a wild river system that functions in parts or sections, is an ideal example for tracing the complexity of the intensifying debate on ecology and sustainability and for developing an aesthetic of its representation that goes beyond scientific data collection. In Italy, the results of this artistic research were on display from 12 October to 3 November 2024 at the City Gallery Gemona in Palazzo Elti. The environmental protection initiative Legambiente played a major role in funding the project.
Exhibition 1
Exhibition 2
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Tagliamento: An Anamnesis of a Landscape – Metabolism and Circulation
Herwig Turk’s artistic research project in the Tagliamento Valley began in early 2017 and was initiated by UNIKUM (University of Klagenfurt). The project has been continuously developed through exhibitions in Klagenfurt in 2018, Vienna and Salzburg in 2021, and Bregenz and Bad Homburg in 2022. Alongside these exhibitions, the work has also been presented internationally at various symposia in recent years, including in Austria, Brazil, Germany and Italy.
The Tagliamento, as a wild river system that functions in parts or sections, is an ideal example for tracing the complexity of the intensifying debate on ecology and sustainability and for developing an aesthetic of its representation that goes beyond scientific data collection. In Italy, the results of this artistic research were on display from 12 October to 3 November 2024 at the Stadtgalerie Gemona in Palazzo Elti. The environmental protection initiative Legambiente played a major role in funding the project.
Herwig Turk’s work is based on a conglomeration of different uses and interpretations of the landscape, whilst at the same time transcending them in an analytically multi-layered and critically fragmented representation. He is concerned with the fundamental question of who claims which space and how much space remains available to the river, whereby the (legal) status of this unique ecosystem represents a key prerequisite or obstacle to the distribution of (landscape) space as a whole. In short: what social and ecological value, and what legal status, is accorded to this intricate river system?
Here, artistic practice—understood as artistic research—can offer a necessary and, at the same time, real-utopian perspective that brings to light what has remained invisible or has been, and continues to be, all too easily overlooked, with the ultimate aim of protecting it from (further) damage and guiding a fragile ecological system towards another possible (and necessary?) future.