TOUCH NATURE

Curated by Sabine Fellner & Alex Radu
Exhibition design by Justin Baroncea & Maria Ghement

Artists | Uli Aigner, Matei Bejenaru, Floriama Candea, Codruța Cernea, Adriana Chiruta, Ciprian Ciuclea, Larisa Crunțeanu, Anna Dumitriu & Alex May, Michael Endlicher, Thomas Feuerstein, Peter Hauenschild, Barbara Anna Husar, Nona Inescu, Kitty Kino, Aurora Kiraly, Alexandra Kontriner, Ana Maria Micu, Nicoleta Mureș, Klaus Pichler, Monika Pichler, PRINZpod, Oliver Ressler, Gregor Sailer, Elisabeth von Samsonow, Hans Schabus, Ramona Schnekenburger, Marielis Seyler, Paul Spendier, Oana Stanciu, Mircea Suciu, Dan Vezentan, Judith Wagner, Nives Widauer, Laurent Ziegler

Visiting schedule | 9 May - 29 June 2024, Thursday-Saturday, 4 pm - 8 pm

Team /SAC | Andreea Chircă, Iulian Cristea, Lidia Dobrea, Anne Lolea, Elena Maxemciuc
Graphic design | Irina Radu
The exhibition is organised by /SAC Bucharest and the Austrian Cultural Forum, with the support of the Austrian Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs.

"Nature must be experienced through feeling."
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)
the father of climatology, ecology and oceanography

The continuous, unrestricted exploitation and increasingly market-driven economy of the resources and the widespread intervention of society upon the biologic, geologic and atmospheric processes of the Earth have not only led to a constantly expanding loss of unspoiled nature as an emotional resource but to the destruction of vital spaces, the extinction of species and to humanitarian, political and economic crises as well.

It has been a considerably long time that artists have dealt in their works with the interference between human beings and their environment, having visualised the fundamental and irreversible changes of our planet, the terrifying consequences of the Anthropocene. Numerous exhibitions are nowadays reacting on an international level to this urging problem of our times, trying to elucidate the fact that the subject matter of the environment has arrived in the contemporary art scene for a considerable period of time by now. In this context, “Touch Nature” is asking questions and seeking for answers to the fact that art has developed as being confronted with the increasing destruction, but also as a consequence of the escalating menace that nature represents for mankind.

In “Touch Nature” at /SAC, the works of Austrian and Romanian artists engage in a dialogue proposing a critical look at the profound transformation of our planetary ecosystem in the Anthropocene and examining the ecological crisis from different perspectives. Through specific artistic mediums, each contribution formulates its opposition against the exploitation of man and nature on a global level or projects hopeful visions regarding new human–non-human dynamics/compositions. Introspectively, the exhibition-installation becomes an immersion in the spectral diversity of attitudes, experiences and psycho-emotional reactions related to the devastating effects of the ecocidal Anthropocene: from activism to climate anxiety, solastalgia, melancholy, shadowtime, depression, abandonment, and back to imaginings of innovative sustainable solutions. Demonstrating through documentation, formulating protests and conceiving possible-but-which-may-seem utopian scenarios represent the fundamental methods of this artistic confrontations at /SAC.

The “Touch Nature” project, initiated by the Austrian Cultural Forum, with a concept proposed by the curator Sabine Fellner, is an itinerant exhibition approach presented in 11 countries in Europe and the United States. It brings forward an exploration of the role of art in questioning the increasingly severe ecological crisis through works by contemporary artists from Austria and each host country, always in an original, site-specific format adapted to each individual cultural context.

Part of the international journey of one of the largest and most challenging itinerant curatorial endeavours of its kind, the “Touch Nature” exhibition acquires in Bucharest a new interface between external and local contributions. Continuing a specific type research at /SAC, that of the (group) exhibition (space) as an medium in itself and meeting place implicitly approached collaboratively, the “Touch Nature” mise-en-scène is different from the practices/paradigms of white-cube, thus the exhibition design is conceived as an installation in itself, with its narratives connected to curatorial intentions. The exhibition takes place in both locations of /SAC, Berthelot and Malmaison – distinct spaces both in terms of architecture and context. Each setting/medium has a different story and (re)contextualises the works in the discourse, while still keeping a continuity between them, but also a surprising contrast. At Berthelot, we become residents of a standard house from an imagined future, while at Malmaison we get lost in a laboratory-archive – a mutation in the evolution of the wunderkammer and collector's room concepts – with countless artistic curiosities (perspectives) from a past that has become today's present.

Photo credits: Ana Maria Micu

Touch Nature in media:

Recommended on Empower Artists
Touch Nature la SAC, Spațiul de Artă Contemporană București (with Alex Radu as guest), 30 Aprilie 2024, 14:04, Radio România Cultural
Bogdan Stănescu (with Alex Radu and Andrei Popov as guests), Jurnal Cultural, 29 April 2024, TVR CULTURAL
Event by Forumul Cultural Austriac București
Touch Nature @ /SAC Bucharest | 35 de artiști români și austrieci în dialog despre un posibil viitor al planetei noastre, 23 April 2024, igloo.ro
Liana Ion, Touch Nature, explorare a rolului artei în abordarea crizei ecologice, în spațiile galeriei /SAC, 17 April 2024, curatorial.ro