Trilogie

Beech branches

Three objects form a unit. Each piece is unique and complete within itself, but together they create stability and balance.

Working with natural materials has always been my passion. In this work, branches from the wild are shaped into a precise form that approximates polished stones. The organic materials are woven and intertwined with one another. Working creatively with and in nature is like meditation; it generates inner peace and strength.

The pictured work in solidarity was created as a team effort by the Engelberg Monastery Flower Shop.

Bäck-Stumm

Sawn and painted branches

In around 1900, local priest Father Emanuel Wagner took portraits of people from the local region – people like “Bäck-Stumm” – many of whom only had this one photograph taken of them during their entire lifetime. That’s one episode, here’s the next: One hundred years later, analogue photography was superseded by digital photography. In modern photographs, the image is broken down into dots, or pixels. In this artwork, each pixel is portrayed by a round, coloured piece of wood. The analogue material and the analogue craft are transformed into a “digital” image of pixels. We are regularly confronted with pixels in our daily lives, on computers, mobile phones and other screens. Most of the time we don’t even think about the underlying pixel structure of an image.

This work connects the past with the present. The photograph comes from the archives of Engelberg’s Tal Museum.

Natur Waldsiegel

Pine cones and moss

My artistic career and my land art journey are leading me more and more towards simpler and more natural land art experiences. I am learning to detach myself from everything and let my creativity unfold in the heart of the forest. In this project, I let the forest and the mountains speak through my land art to deliver their message both in an earthly manner – through natural materials – and in a cosmic one, through symbolic forms. Humanity, like nature, is a creature of symbols. Now more than ever we must not forget that we live in a forest full of symbols.

Moss is associated with the source of life and is a feminine symbol of nature. The pine cone embodies the world of Pan and the golden ratio and is an ancient symbol of vitality, fertility and immortality.

The Story of a Tree

Sawn and dowelled spruce

In our daily lives we are surrounded by objects, and each of them tells a simple story. Our whole life is a series of snapshots. Humans perceive nature as a continuum of eternity, but it too is made up of snapshots. I built a huge pine cone around a tree in order to narrate the slow, gradual growth of a tree, which is almost impossible to capture through human perception.

I have simplified and minimised this process and in so doing have placed the material wood centre stage.

Antennen-Stuhl

Peeled spruce logs

With its dense, contiguous structure, the Hungerboden forest on the Gerschnialp offers very few opportunities for my gaze to wander into the distance. It forces me to look at things up close, to open up my senses, and dive into my own inner self. This is a place where old, seasoned giants encounter fresh young saplings. Life, death and transitions are in direct opposition here. I try to express this theme in my artistic intervention. In keeping with the theme, the antenna chair allows me to come to rest. It grounds me and opens me up to what is in the moment, and at the same time it lets me put out feelers for what may come, for what connects me with the sky. This idea is suggested by the great height of some of the forest trees. The chair is meant to encourage visitors to sit down and take in this moment in their own way.

Schaum der Zeit

Logs, stones, boulders

Foam, as anyone who has ever taken a bubble bath knows, is one of the most transient things in existence. Almost as quickly, all the apocalyptic, fear-inducing predictions in connection with the Covid-19 virus were proved baseless.

My project Schaum der Zeit is formally meant to resemble a place of worship. In a kind of protective space is the holy of holies: the virus – as it has been depicted again and again in our visual world. The virus rises from the dark, unknowable depths of the earth. It is surrounded by a fence that prevents visitors from direct contact with its holiness and denies them a view of this omnipotent representative. The use of natural materials gives the viewers a presentiment of the non-existent permanence of what they are looking at.

Sternschnuppen

Clippings and debris from mowing, branches, hay

Sternschnuppen is a continuation and a variation of an earlier work entitled Vom Himmel gefallen. Whereas the earlier work showed four big stars distributed across a large meadow, this one has many small shooting stars spread across the entire breadth of the slightly sloping terrain. Shooting stars light up the dark night sky for only a second before they burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The shooting stars on the Gerschnialp, however, have made their way to the ground. They will be on display here throughout the summer before nature reclaims their space.

The shooting stars are made largely of waste material from the mowing of the display area, supplemented by additional branches and bushes from the surrounding forests.

öppis mal öppis

Hemp, wood

For millennia, humans have used knots for various purposes – to obtain food, domesticate animals, conquer kingdoms and the seas, ward off evil spirits, and hold the world together. The Inca people used knots and strings to collect data, keep records and convey messages. Sailors tied knot patterns on long voyages, from which the technique of macramé developed. Knots connect, knots denote feelings, knots give security, knots tell stories. In my installation, each of the macramé pieces represents an event, a story or an incident, and within those, each knot is a single episode. My knotted constructions do not have a legible meaning, but a symbolic one.

Landen

Lime wood, spruce branches

Landing and getting orientated – a moment of arrival. Gathering one’s energy, putting things in order, and listening to oneself are all things that I frequently notice I have neglected. I want my work to revive that moment and give it time and space. I combine sculpture with land art. The birds in the foreground are carved in careful detail. The more distant the birds are, the more abstract their form and technique become.

Symphonie

Ash

The sculpture group Symphonie seems like a dance of lightness performed to a symphony of nature.

“Chainsaw art is central to Adrian Künzi’s work. The artist subtly combines power and sensitivity in his working process. In dialogue with the material and the tool, filigree sculptures emerge, rustic objects that move the viewer... The wonderfully sloping and graceful stelae in the landscape evoke memories of ships, capsule fruits or structures on stilts – like those from the days of stilt houses –stimulating the viewer’s imagination and the joy of exploration and discovery.”

Text excerpt: Brigit Meier, Art Educator, Kunstmuseum Luzern