CaixaForum Seville hosts a century of art and nature: from paradise to concern

Arta and Nature. A Century of Biomorphism offers a journey through 20th-century and early 21st-century art through a fruitful dialogue between different creative languages around art and nature. The exhibition reflects current concerns about environmental challenges. 

Conceived by the Centre Pompidou and the ’ la Caixa’, it offers a new approach to great modern artists such as Picasso, Miró, Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Max Ernst, Raoul Hausmann, Jean Arp, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alvar Aalto, in dialogue with artists from recent decades who have contributed new and committed points of view, such as Jeremy Deller, Neri Oxman, John Gerrard and Trevor Yeung. 

On this occasion, the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation is once again joining forces with the Centre Pompidou, a leading institution in modern and contemporary art, to bring 71 masterpieces to the Seville public that highlight the dialogue between art and nature in artistic creation. The 20th and 21st centuries are the starting point for rethinking our current links with the world of living beings, now that our world is reeling from multiple crises. 

After passing through the CaixaForum centres in Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza and Valencia, this exhibition has already been seen by more than 275,000 people. 

The forms of nature have fascinated artists throughout the ages, who have recognised in animals and plants the beauty and mystery, strength and harmony of life. During the first third of the 20th century, this fascination took on a new meaning thanks to the development of microscopic photography techniques, which revealed a previously invisible dimension of life. 

This gave rise to a fascinating aesthetic based on the biology of microorganisms. Photographers, artists, architects and designers developed new ways of observing and displaying nature. A fern leaf, a waterfall, the seabed... were presented in almost abstract compositions as pure forms, closer to the idea than to the material.

In the second half of the 20th century, plants, forests and landscapes began to form part of the work and movements such as Italian arte povera and American land art emerged, creating art with natural elements. The range of forms and visions of nature in 20th-century art offers an inexhaustible spectacle that this exhibition covers extensively. 

From contemplative art to active art

In recent years, new scientific technologies and biotechnology have burst onto the artistic scene, giving rise to new forms of political and social ecology. Artists create works using biomaterials or organic matter and work with natural processes to create conceptual works of art that evolve like living organisms. Their works echo environmental issues and the need to preserve our environment. 

Art and Nature: A Century of Biomorphism provides an opportunity to reflect on the past and present of the relationship between art and nature, between culture and science, based on the rich collections of the Centre Pompidou. 

The exhibition presents a first-rate selection of works from the last century from all disciplines, including painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, film and design, featuring names such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Raoul Hausmann, Vasily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Max Ernst and Giuseppe Penone, among many others, with a significant presence of artists from recent decades who have contributed new and committed perspectives, such as Neri Oxman and Jeremy Deller.

In fact, the exhibition at CaixaForum Sevilla includes new works from the Centre Pompidou collection that will be on display for the first time. These include the three paintings by Joan Miró and the recently acquired works by John Gerrard (Petro National) and Trevor Yeung (Suspended Mr. Cuddles). 

Why biomorphism?

Art Nouveau, Modernism, Modern Style and Art Nouveau brought natural forms to the forefront. In Spain, Antoni Gaudí stands out as an example, using plant, animal and geological structures in his architectural and decorative projects. But it was around the 1920s and 1930s that there was a boom in natural forms in art, architecture and design. 

The exhibition begins around 1920. The appearance of organic forms gave rise to the concept of biomorphism. It was introduced by Alfred H. Barr, the first director of MoMA, in a 1936 exhibition dedicated to abstract art to differentiate works that did not fit the characteristics of abstract and geometric art typical of that period. 

The exhibition is divided into four thematic areas woven together on a chronological and thematic basis: Metamorphosis, Mimicry, Creation and Threat. It begins with the Surrealist artists and continues to the present day, when artists are rethinking their relationship with the environment, which is threatened by multiple crises. 

Each space establishes a chronological and thematic dialogue that allows multiple connections to be made. This is a multidisciplinary exhibition, modelled on the Centre Pompidou's own collections. Painting and sculpture appear alongside photography, film and design. The dialogue between different disciplines transforms our perception of the works and creates new meanings. 

Metamorphosis

A bronze sculpture by Henri Laurens, Métamorphose [Metamorphosis], from 1940, and a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe (Red, Yellow and Black Streaks) from 1924 welcome visitors. The metamorphosis of humans into plants and animals is a theme present in all cultures, with significant weight in Greco-Roman antiquity. 

In modern art, metamorphosis involves the hybridisation of plant, animal and human forms in terms of appearance or structure. At other times, metamorphosis has a fluid and relaxing aspect, as in O'Keeffe's work. Both O'Keeffe and Laurens create forms that express dynamism and transformation, symbolising modern art's ability to transform our awareness of things. 

Julio González is another of the great sculptors featured in the exhibition. In Cactus II, from 1939, the categories of the natural and the cultural, the material and the spiritual are blurred.

Works by Yves Tanguy and Max Ernst from the 1940s and 1950s are combined with a film by New Zealand filmmaker Len Lye, Tusalava, from 1929, which shows a play of organic forms.

The exhibition pays attention to the contribution of women artists, such as Georgia O'Keeffe, whose 1924 painting Red, Yellow and Black Streak is on display. In O'Keeffe's work, we leave the female body behind and anthropomorphic forms are projected onto nature. 

To conclude with some enigmatic works: Ubu IV, a painting by Le Corbusier from 1940, inspired by the character of Alfred Jarry; Jour de lenteur [Day of Slowness], by Yves Tanguy, from 1937, which explores the interior landscape; Les trois cyprès [The Three Cypresses], from 1951, a painting by Max Ernst in which visitors will once again encounter the anthropomorphic form: the human being transformed into an impossible tree. 

Flower women

A group of works deals with the transfiguration of the human body into a flower. Laurens sculpts a being that becomes an anthropomorphic form in Femme fleur [Flower Woman], from 1942. Also noteworthy is Le chapeau à fleurs [The Flower Hat], from 1940, by Picasso, in which there is a hybridisation between the woman and the flower hat. Femme au chapeau (Woman with Hat), from 1935, blurs the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the vegetal and the human. The flower represents beauty, but also sex and fertility, for example in Femme-fleur (Flower Woman), from 1984, a late work by Brassaï made from pink marble. 

Léon Tutundjian's work, Composition cellulaire au cercle rouge [Cellular Composition with Red Circle], from 1927, introduces a section in which the female body suggests rounded, vegetal forms. In Torse-fruit [Torso-fruit], from 1960/1967, Jean Arp returns to the comparison between women and fruit (or flowers) from a new perspective. 

One of the attractions of this section is the opportunity to view Arp's sculpture alongside the sensual universe of Raoul Hausmann's nude photographs from 1930-1934. Hausmann produced a significant part of his work in Ibiza at the time when the island was being discovered by international artists. The female body, lying on the beach, becomes an abstract sculpture. 

Mimicry

This section examines artists' fascination with natural forms, which leads them to incorporate them into their works. 

On other occasions, the structure, form and principles governing the movement of animals and plants are imitated, as in Alexander Calder's Four Leaves and Three Petals, from 1939, in which the forms created by the artist move like elements of the real world. The exhibition features two pieces by architect Alvar Aalto: the Paimio 41 chair from 1930 and Flowers from 1940, creative works that take their cue from the simplicity and beauty of the plant world. 

Design plays an important role in this field. Patrick Jouin designed a flower-shaped lamp in 2010, while Ross Lovegrove created a table in 2007 inspired by the shape of the leaves of the ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), a tree attributed with medicinal and spiritual qualities. Andrew Kudless (2012) created a structure based on the shape of a colony of barnacles. 

A final section is devoted to the geological world with a work by Alberto Magnelli on stones and earth, and a work by Jean Dubuffet from 1961 that recreates the texture of the earth. Photographer Paul Nash also portrays waterfalls and stone walls. 

Finally, there is a work by Simone Forti: two films from 1974, a video with two large caged grizzly bears and a second video in which Forti draws inspiration from the movements of these same bears to create a choreography. 

New Objectivity

Photography also plays a fundamental role in this section, once again through the work of Raoul Hausmann, with two photographs from 1931 on display. 

Another prominent photographer linked to the New Objectivity movement, which emerged in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, is Albert Renger-Patzsch, with a 1928 photograph of a Sempreviva presented as a natural form of sculptural nature. 

Vasily Kandinsky is an artist who is very well represented in the Centre Pompidou's collections. The exhibition features a piece from the 1930s, corresponding to the period of his stay in Paris. Trente [Thirty], from 1937, is a masterpiece in the Centre Pompidou's collection. 

André Steiner photographs a fish's eye as a still life. It fits in with László Moholy-Nagy's avant-garde 1936 film about the life of the lobster. This immersion in the world of marine forms ends with two drawings with rust of octopuses by the Marseille artist Hervé Paraponaris from 1993, which are full of sensuality and beauty. 

Creation

A work by Frantisek Kupka from 1919-1923 shows the growth of pistils and stamens: creation from the organic forms of flowers. In this case, the flower is presented as a set of forms with an autonomous existence. 

After this prologue, the exhibition takes us into the modern world of the 1960s and 1970s, which explores new aspects of the relationship between nature and art. 

Robert Smithson's 1970 film Spiral Jetty conveys the idea of the continuous genesis of forms in nature. In Pelle di cedro [Cedar Skin], a work from the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation Art Collection from 2002-2003, Giuseppe Penone introduces the tactile dimension with a work that looks like a bas-relief, where veins sink into the material, like the veins of a hand, yet emerge slightly from the skin. In it, he raises the idea of the intrinsic vitality of matter. 

Israeli artist Neri Oxman creates her work from organic networks and cellular structures. In ‘Doppelgänger’ Wing Series (2012), she creates a form that could be an animal mask or wings. In her models, Alisa Andrasek works with bionic materials produced from biological matter treated with digital tools to create architectural forms inspired by the organic world. 

The exhibition also includes an audiovisual installation by English artist Jeremy Deller, Exodus, from 2012. It is a three-dimensional installation based on two video projectors that allow us to see bats hibernating and reproducing in a cave; at the end, they leave the cave and fly away. Deller's work reflects our fear of danger in today's world from a new virus, based on the idea that COVID-19 was originally transmitted by bats. 

The ephemeral and the artificial

The art of the 1960s and 1970s introduced the dimension of the ephemeral. Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij's 2004 work Bouquet III examines the symbolism of flowers from a new perspective, relating them to forms of contemporary violence. 

By associating Dutch participation in the second Gulf War with a dazzling bouquet of ephemeral beauty, the artists turn it into a symbol of empty, purely decorative promises. 

Italian arte povera incorporates elements of nature with a conceptual approach. This is the case with the aforementioned work Pelle di cedro [Cedar Skin], which connects in a revealing way with the bench designed by Benjamin Graindorge in 2011: at one end it rests on the ground thanks to its branches; at the other end we have polished wood: the natural body is transformed into a manufactured object. Many other artists, such as Richard Deacon, have been fascinated by the plasticity and beauty of wood, a material of infinite creation. 

Threat

The fourth section is shorter than the previous ones. It expresses the fear of nature, or rather the fear of the effect of human activity on nature, which is at risk. In this way, the exhibition enters the environmental field. 

Here you can see John Gerrard's audiovisual project Petro National, consisting of 196 works representing the contours of different countries in the form of oil slicks evolving on the surface of the sea. In the case of the work on display, it is the outline of Nigeria. It reflects on the ecological impact of geopolitics and the distribution of wealth and power. Twenty-five per cent of the profits from the sale of the works will go towards the fight against climate change. 

Also in line with environmental impact is the work of Trevor Yeung, Suspended Mr. Cuddles, which poetically reflects human powerlessness in the face of the forces of nature: a pachira tree - known as the ‘money tree’ - hangs horizontally from straps in a tense and striking manner before the astonished gaze of the viewer.

Mediation proposals with a scientific perspective and multidisciplinary activities

The exhibitions at the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation encourage public participation. For this reason, they are always accompanied by a mediation project that allows visitors to explore the concepts addressed in the exhibition. 

In the case of Art and Nature: A Century of Biomorphism, the mediation project aims to strengthen the links between culture and science and has been developed in collaboration with the scientific team at the La Caixa Foundation.

Thus, the concepts presented in each of the areas in their artistic form are reflected on interactive screens in their natural version: the metamorphosis we saw in Arp's sculptures or in Picasso's paintings can now be seen in the transition from a chrysalis to a butterfly. Or Kandinsky's mimicry of marine worms is echoed in the camouflage of a stick insect.

To broaden the scope of the exhibition, the Arte y (Post)Naturaleza (Art and (Post)Nature) series of talks will take place from 22 May. From Impressionism to the Anthropocene, a journey through the history of the relationship between art and nature, from the first steps of Impressionism to the Anthropocene era. Curated by art historian and University of Barcelona (UB) professor Daniel López del Rincón, each session represents a different stage in this journey, exploring how artists have interpreted and reimagined this connection over time. 

In addition, on 30 May, DJ and electronic music composer Cora Novoa will arrive at CaixaForum Sevilla to present The Eternal Circle, a hybrid performance with modular synthesizers alongside visuals by Madrid-based artist Tirador. Together with the audience, they will travel through the immensity of matter, energy, space and time, through textures, harmonies and experimental sounds, linking it to nature. 

Throughout the months of the exhibition, there will be family workshops, a series of Pequeños cinéfilos (Little Film Buffs), guided tours and a themed menu. All activities can be found here.

Entre Ruinas, art in the face of the planetary crisis at CaixaForum+ 

The free online platform CaixaForum+ premiered the documentary series Entre ruinas. Arte para un planeta herido (Among Ruins: Art for a Wounded Planet), in which artists from different disciplines reflect on possible strategies for changing the way we inhabit the world, focusing on artistic practice. Over three 30-minute episodes, the series gives voice to a diverse group of artists and artistic collectives who reveal their proposals for addressing this crisis.