Field Works Summer 2024
As part of Larroque Art Festival (LAF) 2024, Alan Rutherford (SCO) and Ian Wieczorek (IRE) collaborated to create field works in the nearby Grésigne forests. Two main works developed from the tests and experiments: 'Resonator' and 'Shrine'.
Resonator
/ˈrɛzəneɪtə/
noun: an apparatus that increases the resonance of a sound; a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behaviour; a natural amplifier
Location: La Forêt de Grésigne, SW France, 44°00'14.7"N 1°41'38.4"E (open in Google maps)
Artists: Ian Wieczorek (IRE) and Alan Rutherford (SCO), 2024
Resonator is a low-impact artistic intervention sited beside a well-established forest trail in la Forêt de Grésigne. Using minimally altered materials, the work comprises a vertically placed tree branch and three large rocks that act as its support. The 2.5 metre tree limb, which was found lying on the ground nearby, was selected due to its crossing branches, creating a long thin ‘eye’ at one end. Raised vertically into position, in a small natural ‘amphitheatre’ space located beside a well-established forest trail, it assumes a sense of intentionality that invites conjecture from anyone who engages with it. No additional artifice or device has been added to direct attention toward the work, the intention being that it should be discovered by trail users as they make their way along the path.
La Forêt de Grésigne is one of the one of the largest original oak forests in Europe. Resonator is a work that recognises and reflects 170,000 years of continuous prehuman (Neanderthal) and human occupation in the region.1 The materials used, stone and wood, are not only basic physical materials that would have been used since earliest times for construction and as fuel, they also acknowledge the glass factories (verrières) that operated in the forest from the 14th to 19th centuries using the local sandstone (known as grès, which gave the forest its name) heated to 1000°C using wood-fired kilns, and also charcoal burners who made their living in the forest up until the beginning of the 20th century.2
Based on its simple construction and materials, Resonator suggests some kind of minimal primitive totemic or shamanistic signifier, yet its form is also reminiscent of a contemporary aerial or transmitter. By offering itself as an object of contemplation, its associative connotations acknowledge, reflect and amplify the rich and long history associated with the locale. Figuratively drawing from the earth in which it is rooted, it might even be seen as a symbolic conduit that taps into notions of Jungian archetype and the collective unconscious.
- Ian Wieczorek, 2024
1 Jaubert, J., Verheyden, S., Genty, D. et al., Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. Nature 534, 111–114 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18291
2 La Forêt de la Grésigne (Tarn). 1, Des origines à 1669 (3e éd.) / Raymond Granier, [Laguépie] (82250): R. Granier (1981)
Shrine
Intervention, limestone.
Location: La Forêt de Grésigne,Occitanie, SW France, 44° 0' 16.8" N, 1° 41' 37.29" E (open in google maps)
Artists: Ian Wieczorek (UK/IRE) and Alan Rutherford (SCO), 2024
Shrine is an ephemeral site specific intervention work that attempts to make a direct connection between the viewer and the landscape through its use of natural materials and location. The artists share a mutual respect for the love of the natural and the rural. This helped to establish a creative decision making process that sought to make use of only the organic, the natural and found materials that were located alongside the forested hill path that snakes its way up the ‘falaise de calcaire rose’ (pink limestone cliff) in the Forest of Grésigne above the village of Larroque. (1)
The primitive is at play here in the work, alongside the overwhelming enjoyment of working within an ancient landscape that was inhabited as far back as 400,000 years ago by Neanderthal settlers. These early settlers made and left their creative marks with the earliest known physical Neanderthal presence in the Grésigne dating back to 170,000 years ago at the stalactite cave temple of Bruniquel. (2)
Much later on between c. 30-13,000 BCE, Paleolithic people made their (literal) marks on the nearby cave walls of La Grotte des Mayrières Supérieure. 3 The artists visited this cave for inspiration, learning that it was formed by melting glaciers after the last Ice Age and inhabited by our Paleolithic ancestors. (3) The cave includes two faded neolithic cave paintings of bison. (4)
Shrine incorporates elements of a primitive and instinctive mark making tradition by applying small stones of similar colour to an exposed rock face. The intention here being to establish connections between the ancient landscape and the viewer. The work provides a basic set of conditions that can allow the viewer to meditate on its meaning. With this connection established, there can be a spiritual awakening of sorts, where a correlation takes place that synergizes the viewer with the primitive and the ancient into one single entity. The artwork is also related to ‘Resonator', another site specific work that was created by the artists in the same forest.
- Alan Rutherford, 2024
1 See: https://www.la-toscane-occitane.com/en/larroque
2 See: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotte_de_Bruniquel
3 See: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotte_de_Mayrière_supérieure
4 See: https://capa-archeo.fr/une-foret-de-graffitis-autour-de-bisons
Research Trip to visit Grotte de Mayrière supérieure cave:
