Exhibition: Art of Garden Care (Selim Birsel)

Art of Garden Care

Some artists’ studios are merely made up of a desk and a small notebook. Selim Birsel is an artist who knows how to form, transform, and construct his works within the practice of daily life and he enjoys this process. Sounds, smells, objects… Or an unexpected gust of wind, a wave and a stone thrown into the wave. In other words, it is necessary to always be alert, because what we encounter in his works—an object or a verb—can always become a word play through its given name or materiality or open up to processes of waiting for a long time, getting the texture just right.

Speed and slowness are the two foundational principles of garden care. To look after a garden is to hear the processes, to touch them, to understand them. To take care of a garden allows the caretaker to comprehend their own processes (beings, flows), to always reinvent—it is no coincidence that capitalism attacks gardens.

Selim Birsel has previously shown us gardens, backyards, ‘wheatank’ fields, spinning a peg top… Included in the garden at the Bunker are photographs, objects, metal plates and some music for the rhythm. If you would like to play the guitar, rest assured that the amplifier will be on.