Falling Garden by Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger

Posted by Inspir3d on January 5, 2011 in Exhibition, Show & Festival · 0 Comments

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Falling Garden | San Staë church on the Canale Grande | 50th Biennial of Venice, 2003

Almost everyone I know loves this installation at first sight. When I see this work by artists Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger, there are so many words and images blink through in my head - fairy dust, rose pedals, bells, feathers, love, rainbow, sunlight, air, birds - that it is almost overwhelming. Falling Garden is the reason why I'm addicted to the work created by this pair.

The Doge (Mocenigo) needed a church so as to be able to have a monumental tomb built for himself, the church (San Staë) needed a saint so as to be able to be built, the saint (San Eustachio) needed a miracle so as to be pronounced a saint, the miracle needed a stag in order to be seen, and we built the garden for the reindeer. The visitors lie on the bed above the doge’s gravestone, and the garden thinks for them.

Components: Plastic berries (India), cow pads (Jura), waste paper (Venice), baobab seeds (Australia), beech, elder and magnolia branches (Uster), thorns (Almeria), nylon blossoms (one-dollar-shop), pigs’ teeth (Indonesia), seaweed (Seoul), orange peel (Migros shop), fertilizer crystals (home grown), pigeons’ bones (San Staë), silk buds (Stockholm), cattail (Ettiswil), cats’ tails (China), celery roots (Montreal), virility rind (Caribbean), wild bore quills (zoo), banana leaves (Murten), rubber snakes (Cincinnati)…