ARENA FOR A TREE
An art intervention by Klaus Littmann
Arsenale Nord, Venice 16 April – 31 July 2024
The art intervention Arena for a Tree by Klaus Littmann will be presented for the first time in Venice. Parallel to the opening of the 60th International Art Exhibition, Arena for a Tree is intended to convey an important message about climate change and sustainability. Set against the backdrop of the historic Arsenale Nord, the temporary installation rises like an ark with a single protagonist at its center: the tree. From a distance, the Arena for a Tree looks like a germinating seed pod. Up close, it is at once sculpture, architecture and podium: the grandstand offers three rows of seats and can accommodate 50 people at a time, allowing for an intimate experience and an ideal view of the living trees, whose roots are submerged in a pool of water.
Inspired by the Biennale’s main exhibition entitled “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere ", Arena for a Tree explores themes of migration and identity. Over long geological epochs, the Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), which plays a prominent role in the installation, was native to various regions of the world. While its current habitat mainly covers large parts of Central and South America, the looming spectre of global warming suggests that it could also gain a foothold in Europe. Robust and resilient, this tree adapts to a variety of soil types, whether wet, salty, dry or marshy. It is known for the reddish-brown autumn color of its delicate needles.
“The Bald Cypress has an exceptional ability to pump up to 800 liters of flood water per day, cool the surrounding atmosphere, withstand storms and extreme temperatures, making it particularly resilient to the challenges of climate change and some of the challenges facing Venice in particular,” says landscape architect Enzo Enea, who is working with Littmann.
The Arena for a Tree is a further development of FOR FOREST: The Unending Attraction of Nature, Austria’s largest public art installation, in which 299 trees up to 14 meters high were planted on the soccer pitch of the Wörthersee Stadium in Klagenfurt in 2019. “Arena for a Tree” was first presented in 2021 on Münsterplatz in Basel with the accompanying exhibition Tree Connections at the Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger and in spring 2022 in the courtyard of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich. Venice is his third and final destination – and the first to include water as another important environmental element.
Designed by Littmann and realized by Schnetzer Puskas Engineers, the arena consists of a basket-like, 7-meter-high transparent structure made of wooden frames and slats. Its curved and bent laminated beams are connected at the top by a tension ring and at the bottom by a steel tension belt. Viewed in plan, the design of the structure and the inner stand represents the trunk of a tree in profile with its concentric pattern of annual rings.
What Klaus Littmann skillfully isolates can currently rearrange our view of the world. The artist and curator has experience in inviting a wide audience to a comprehensive experience. Providing shade or hosting birds and insects, his small, temporary nature reserve presents itself as a sensation of peace.
“In its bloom, we see a beacon of hope in it. When it drops its leaves, we think about transience. The tree is a sign of life, a representative of the diversity of species and a witness to the vulnerability of the global ecosystem,” says Klaus Littmann.
The Arena for a Tree was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger | KBH.G and the collaboration with ECC Italy (European Cultural Centre) as well as the generous support of the Venice City Council and the port authorities.
As with all projects of the Basel H. Geiger | KBH.G Cultural Foundation and ECC Italy, the catalog and admission are free.
The “Arena for a Tree” is located on a pontoon in the Arsenale Nord and can be reached by lines 4.1, 4.2, 5.1 and 5.2 (ACTV stop “Bacini – Arsenale nord”) or on foot from Campo de la Celestia via the suspension bridge along the northern boundary wall of the Arsenale.
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more about ARENA FOR A TREE, Basel 2021 / Zurich 2022 / Venice 2024
