“oh! isto é tão contemporâneo”

JOSEPH BEUYS
7000 OAKS (7000 EICHEN - 1982/1987)
(replay: lina&nando 10.11.10)

In 1982 he was invited to create a work for Documenta 7.
He delivered a large pile of basalt stones. From above one could
see that the pile of stones was a large arrow pointing to a single
oak tree that he had planted. He announced that the stones
should not be moved unless an oak tree was planted in
the new location of the stone. 7,000 oak trees were then
planted in Kassel, Germany. This project exemplified the idea
that a social sculpture was defined as interdisciplinary
and participatory. Beuys’s wanted to effect environmental
and social change through this project. The Dia Art Foundation
continues his project still and has planted more trees and paired
them with basalt stones too.

Beuys said that:

My point with these seven thousand trees was that each would
be a monument, consisting of a living part, the live tree, changing
all the time, and a crystalline mass, maintaining its shape, size,
and weight. This stone can be transformed only by taking from it,
when a piece splinters off, say, never by growing. By placing these
two objects side by side, the proportionality of the monument’s
two parts will never be the same.
(@wikipedia)

(#3: Joseph Beuys, 7000 Oaks. West 22nd Street
between 10th and 11th Av. - NYC.)