COAL partner of the exhibition “7000 Oaks

Exhibition 7000 OAKS

From June 27 to July 12, 2014 at the Maréchalerie, contemporary art center of Versailles

Artists: Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey / Curator : Lucy + Jorge ORTA

Ackroyd & Harvey’s work combines sculpture, photography, science, architecture and ecology. By investing mainly public spaces, but also galleries and museums with materials most often of natural origin, the two artists reconcile the urban and the vegetal, Nature and Culture. Their often monumental and poetic works deal with the fragility of our ecosystem while paying tribute to its incredible resilience.

In 2007, Ackroyd & Harvey made a trip to Kassel, Germany, where they collected and germinated several hundred acorns from the 7,000 oak trees planted by Joseph Beuys in 1982. These give birth to 250 young trees: “Beuys Acorns”. Artists tenaciously tend to these descendants in order to embrace Beuys’ ambition that cities and towns should be like forests. “Beuys Acorns” explores ideas associated with the provenance of trees and questions the artist’s relationship to nature, climate change, and an economic system devoted to the market and the exploitation of natural resources. Joseph Beuys had a mission, to change the social order. Ackroyd & Harvey question what the legacy of this mission can contribute to the climatic, ecological and economic challenges of the early 21st century.

Emerging science shows how crucial forests are to the long-term health of cities: a 10% increase in tree cover can keep temperature increases below 4°C and make cities invulnerable to climate change until 2080. As a continuation of this research and as part of the exhibition, the artists will plant seven oak trees in the new Parc de Sculpture Les Moulins during a performance this fall.

Monday to Saturday from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm, free admission

Public access
By the Place des Manèges, avenue du Général de Gaulle, 78000 Versailles, or by 5 avenue de Sceaux, 78000 Versailles (except on Saturdays).

Access by transport
From Paris, by RER C : Versailles Rive-Gauche station. From Paris Saint-Lazare : Versailles Rive-Droite station. From Paris Montparnasse : Versailles Chantiers station.

Exhibition from June 27th to July 12th, 2014 at La Maréchalerie

Curators : Lucy + Jorge Orta

For the second consecutive year, La Maréchalerie, the contemporary art center of l’énsa-Versailles and Les Moulins, the research and production center founded by artists Lucy + Jorge Orta, combine their respective exhibition and artist in residency program, to present the work of British artist duo Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey in dialogue with the seminal work of Joseph Beuys, ” 7000 Oaks “.

The work of Ackroyd & Harvey combines sculpture, photography, science, architecture and ecology. By investing public spaces, museums and galleries with materials carefully extracted from the natural world, the artists fuse urban and vegetal, nature and culture. Their poetic works, often monumental deal with the fragility of our ecosystem while paying tribute to its incredible resilience.

In 2007, Ackroyd & Harvey made a journey to the German city of Kassel where they gathered and germinated hundreds of acorns from Joseph Beuys’s ” 7000 Oaks “, and in doing so began a new long-term research project, which they entitled ” Beuys Acorns “. The acorns germinated into two hundred surviving saplings, and their ongoing project is to carefully nurture these descendants and embrace Beuys’s declaration that our towns and cities become forests. “Beuys Acorns” explores the agency of ideas associated with the provenance of the trees, and provokes questions as to the artists’ relationship with nature, climate change and an economic system devoted to market forces and radical exploitation of natural resources. Beuys had a mission, to change the social order. Ackroyd & Harvey ask what the legacy of Beuys’s mission is given to the climate of ecological and economic degradation at the beginning of the 21st century.

Emerging scientific theories show that trees, forests and vegetation are vital to the long-term health of our cities: adding 10% area of trees to city centers cools them by 4 degrees centigrade, climate proofing the city until 2080. In the context of their ongoing research and to coincide with their exhibition at La Maréchalerie, plans are being made for a future planting of seven oaks in the Les Moulins sculpture park this autumn.

Credits: © Dan Harvey