GaiaMotherTree, Ernesto Neto's giant handmade sculpture at Zurich Station

Zurich Central Station, Switzerland, from June 30 to July 29, 2018, is the site of an impressive project by artist Ernesto Neto (Rio de Janeiro, 1964), presented by Fondation Beyeler in Basel. It is the monumental work GaiaMotherTree, a tree-like sculpture made of multicolored hand-knotted cotton ribbons that stretches to the ceiling of the station’s 20-meter-high main concourse. GaiaMotherTree is intended to be an immersive work, a place of encounter, interaction and meditation. And to be so, it will host within it a varied program of events for young and old with music, meditations, workshops, reflections on the work and lectures. At the same time, at the Fondation Beyeler headquarters (Baselstrasse 77, Riehen, Basel), a small exhibition of important historical sculptures by Ernesto Neto from the 1980s and 1990s has been set up in the museum’s central hall, while Altar for a plant, from 2017, has been placed in the park.

The uniqueness of GaiaMotherTree lies in the fact that it was made entirely by hand. Ribbons of cotton were crocheted with fingers and finally knotted to form a giant transparent sculpture. In its configuration, the work resembles a tree whose foliage encroaches on the ceiling of the station’s main concourse. At the foot of the tree is a large walkable space in which visitors can linger and sit on seats arranged in a circle. Dangling drop-shaped elements are filled with spices and fragrant seeds.

To date, GaiaMotherTree is Fondation Beyeler’s largest and most challenging public art project: moreover, it is an achievement that took more than four years to complete. The installation is 20 meters high, spans an area of 40 x 28 meters, and consists of 10’220 linear meters of cotton fabric: the fabric ribbons were knotted over the course of several weeks by 27 people entirely by hand using a finger crochet technique (not a single nail was used). The hanging counterweights were filled in total with 420 kilos of spices: 140 kilos of turmeric, 140 kilos of cloves, 70 kilos of cumin and 70 kilos of black pepper, with the central counterweight containing 70 kilos of seeds (around the base, 840 kilos of soil anchors the work to the floor).

“GaiaMotherTree,” said Ernesto Neto, “is a tribute to Mother Earth understood as a place that provides for us and nurtures interpersonal relationships. The installation wants to stop the passerby for a brief moment and plant a seed in him. It is a place to simply exist, to breathe, to dream. It wants to make us feel alive, to make us realize how divine it is to be alive. It is a place to share this joyfulness -- to share ideas and dreams, to think, to meditate, even to dance. It is a place to be, to feel our spirituality in communion with nature and those around us. A train station is really an interesting place because in a station you are always arriving or leaving - it is the state of going somewhere or arriving somewhere else. Our thoughts are either in the future or in the past. We hardly spend any time thinking that actually we are in a station. I like this idea of ’non-place’. Perhaps GaiaMotherTree can fill this void.”

The idea of making the work walkable is due to the fact that, Ernesto Neto recounts further, “it is about offering freedom but also raising awareness of the idea that being truly ’free’ implies taking responsibility for our actions and choices on this planet in the social and ecological spheres. My walkable sculptures are not exclusively meeting places; they remind us that it is important to tread lightly and be kind to one another. If one is not good to oneself and to others, things can tear, fall or break. In becoming more mindful of our actions and their impact on others, we hope to achieve better balance and care in our society. It starts in ourselves.” The artist also invites people to touch his work, “In an ideal world one should be able to touch anything. But our world is not like that. Usually objects considered valuable cannot be touched, including art. But-because of their wealth, rank, power or other reasons-some people have also become untouchable. I don’t think such a thing is healthy for a society. So the tactile aspect of my work should be understood as a critique of untouchability.”

“With GaiaMotherTree,” argues Michiko Kono, Associate Curator of Fondation Beyeler, "Neto takes up the motif of the tree widely used in cultural-historical circles. A symbol of greatness, strength, longevity, stability or fertility, as well as protection or threat, the tree is present in all cultures, in folk beliefs, fairy tales, myths, poems and religious writings, philosophy and mysticism. In art, it has been represented in a plethora of works, both as the quintessence of nature and as an emblematic image. Gustav Klimt in 1911 created a mosaic frieze for the dining room of the Palais Stoclet in Brussels whose central motif is a tree of life. The stylized depiction of the tree marked an important stage in Piet Mondrian ’s move toward abstraction and constructivism. Joseph Beuys in the context of the 1982 Kassel Documenta planted the first of 7,000 oak trees, thus launching his ecologically motivated action Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung (City Forestation instead of City Administration). For his part, Giuseppe Penone is known for his works in which the tree, a perfect work as he calls it, is the basis of his reflections on sculpture. In GaiaMotherTree, some worthy correlations between Neto’s artistic tree and the tree in botanical reality are highlighted. The early work Cologne, which Neto created a few months after his first solo exhibition in 1988 and which in conjunction with the presentation of GaiaMotherTree can be seen at the Fondation Beyeler, consists of thin, fragile nylon stockings filled with heavy, hard lead shot sold as gun ammunition. In the work, the feminine and the masculine are co-present: if the pouch is raised, it resembles male attributes; if it lies on the ground, its opening takes on the appearance of a vulva. This formal masculine-feminine principle and the union of the two sexes emerge in several of Neto’s works and find correspondence in many plants such as fruit trees or magnolias that have hermaphrodite flowers, each bearing stamens, male, and pistils, female."

Ernesto Neto is considered one of Brazil’s leading contemporary artists. Through his work, he has achieved notoriety not least through his participation in several editions of the Venice Biennale (starting with the one in 2017, where his work Um sagrado lugar was included among the 10 highlights of the exhibition according to Finestre Sull’Arte) and his presence in exhibitions hosted by renowned museums around the world. Works by Ernesto Neto can be found permanently in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Hara Museum in Tokyo. Neto’s art is influenced not only by Brazilian neo-concretism of the 1960s, but also by minimal art, conceptual art, and arte povera. Spirituality, humanism and ecology are salient aspects of his work. Since the 1990s his works have been distinguished by the use of atypical materials and techniques in art. Peculiar to his sculptures are biomorphic forms and organic materials. Sensuality, transparency, and sharing often play an important role. The works can be touched, walked through or set in motion, often they also engage the sense of smell. The viewer is stimulated to focus on his or her perception and interact with the surroundings and the work itself.

Since 2013 Neto has been working closely with the Huni Kuin, an indigenous people of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest who live almost on the border with Peru. The culture and traditions, language, ancestral knowledge, craftsmanship, aesthetics, values, worldview, and spiritual connection of these Amerindians with nature have changed Neto’s artistic conception and become an integral part of it. The works that arise from this artistic and spiritual exchange invite a pause for introspection, but also for collective debate and discussion on issues such as the relationship between humans and nature, sustainability or the protection and dissemination of knowledge from other human societies.

The project GaiaMotherTree" is supported by Beyeler-Stiftung, Hansjörg Wyss, Wyss Foundation, Lotteriefonds des Kantons Zürich, Beitragsfonds des Finanzdepartements der Stadt Zürich, Tarbaca Indigo Foundation, Alexander S.C. Rower, eBay, Max Kohler Stiftung, Georg und Bertha Schwyzer-Winiker-Stiftung, and more than 50 private donors.

Pictured: GaiaMotherTree at Zurich Central Station.

GaiaMotherTree, Ernesto Neto's giant handmade sculpture at Zurich Station

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