A forest in the football stadium
In the football stadium in Klagenfurt, trees are currently on display instead of balls being kicked. Swiss art curator Klaus Littmann is thus realising a 40-year-old drawing by an Austrian artist. Not everyone is happy about this.
The Wörthersee Stadium in Klagenfurt, Austria, was built especially for the 2008 European Football Championship. It can hold 30,000 spectators, which was great for the Euros, but somewhat oversized for the second division club SK Austria Klagenfurt. That's why there are now trees there instead of footballers.
Swiss art initiator Klaus Littmann has rented the stadium for his project "FOR FOREST - The Unbroken Attraction of Nature". Since 8 September, visitors have been able to marvel at an authentic Central European forest with 299 trees from the stands. "The project represents an exceptional situation, not only in Klagenfurt but worldwide, which was made possible thanks to several people, including the mayor. The stadium has been used for concerts and ice hockey in recent years, which is why it was available for the art installation," says Ginevra Fiorentini, Deputy Director of Reiber PR.
Good timing for some
In the new installation, Littmann refers to the pencil drawing of the same name by Austrian artist Max Peintner. Even when he drew the picture in 1970/71, he suspected that humanity would be fighting to save nature decades later. With this project, Littmann also wants to point out that in future we may only be able to marvel at nature in explicitly designated spaces - like animals in a zoo. The timing of the installation could hardly be more impressive: the Amazon has been burning for weeks.
Bad timing for the others
But not everyone is happy about the art project. The Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) is "not amused", to put it mildly. The stadium was the last major project of party founder and former Carinthian governor Jörg Haider. This alone has caused members' emotions to run high on the topic. What's more, the trees do not come from Carinthia, but from Germany, Italy and Belgium. And, of course, football cannot be played at the moment, which is currently being felt by the Bundesliga club Wolfsberger AC. They have surprisingly qualified for the Europa League and now have to play their matches in Graz. All of this led the party to call for satirical protests with chainsaws. "Since it opened, the opinion of those who were initially against it has changed dramatically. The atmosphere is great and every day more and more visitors come to congratulate us," says Fiorentini.
The installation can be admired until 27 October, after which the forest will be relocated. The trees will remain on the university campus in Klagenfurt as a living, constantly changing "forest sculpture". What the difference is between this forest sculpture and a conventional forest remains unclear. At least for me.
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