ENVIRONMENT, ART, NATURE...

Canadian art critic and writer, John K. Grande says this about famous environmental artist, Bavarian Nils-Udo: "Active in the field of environmental art since the 1960s, Nils-Udo builds structures, elaborates on the landscape in a scale that fits, montaging natural materials on site. Thus links are established between horticulture and art, but with a basic sensitivity to the history of the landscape and land. Nils-Udo breaks through this dream-state of contemporary culture to make explicit the many ways we perceive, define and reflect on reality."

In Nils-Udo's words:“Sketching with flowers. Painting with clouds. Writing with water. Tracing the May wind, the path of a falling leaf. Working for a thunderstorm. Awaiting a glacier. Bending the wind. Directing water and light. The May-green call of the cuckoo and the invisible trace of its flight. Space. The cry of an animal. The bitter taste of daphne. Burying the pond and the dragon-fly. Setting fire to the fog and the perfume of the yellow barberry. Marrying sounds, colors and smells. The green grass. Counting a forest and a meadow.

Clearly it is only in her very last refuges that nature is still intact, inexhaustible; it is only there that enchantment is still reality. On any day of the year, in every season, in any light, in any weather; in the Largest and Smallest.

These days however, people are not interested in this. Nature is no longer an issue, except to a few Greens, who mostly can no longer tell a lime tree from a beech tree. Of course, there are many who pretend to love nature. Like the ones who claim to want peace. The fact is, they lost nature long ago. They don't see it any more, let alone hear it, smell it, taste it or touch it. When they do in fact take a look, they still don't see: they lost the prerequisites long ago for a larger, expansive and transitory overall view.

Make natural space into Art-space? Where is the limit on the narrow line between nature and art? Art? Life! What counts is the utopian character, the life- and art-blending character of my actions. My response to the events that mark my existence. My life. Are there art-lovers interested in my life?

A picture. A leaf, laden with flowers, drifting down a brook. Life.”