STARTDUST Oude Warande Tilburg

Okay, its summer in Brabant! So if you are sure that's nice weather, just go for a nice walk in the park! This summer Fundament Foundation has realized something catchy in the Oude Warande, Tilburg. They complemented the park with a new paviljon designed by Callum Morton. Is it an artwork of just a teahouse? A place where you can lumber in the shade or snap a white wine on the terras?

From the outside, it only casts reflections as it first appears. But this is only one of the surprises you find in the park this summer. To celebrate the realization of the pavilion, Chris Driessen has curated a exhibition around pavilion of Callum Morton. And as you can see in the following pictures I took, the theme of ‘casting reflections’ is quite close the subject of a lot of the sculptures. Some artists show quite other kind of work, but that’s for you yourself to explore.

I just like to zoom in a bit on the reflections partly casted by the works displayed. In a time of economic downfall, the pavilion of Callum Morton is in my views almost a paraphrase on the tall mirroring banking buildings, we more over see in the citycenters of our larger cities. Over here in the middle of this classic green park it is almost an antagonism, if you connects it’s appearance to that of those glass façade buildings we all know so well as the institutionalized image of power.

But then entering in closer, the surprice will even be bigger…

It’s likely that it is a timemachine in the same time. Mirrors as a disguise. A stubborn bloc, you almost cannot see clear, because it is absorbed by its surroundings, mirroring everything back to you, and then it cloakes something completely different? Already curious enough, Go check and see it for yourself. (No, this next picture is the cabin at the entrance).

And still an other big contrast there is, with this little pavilion a bit further down the lane, where you find the weightless transparent glass building of Dan Graham.

It’s only a few weeks passed, that I spoke with him, on the memorial lecture in homage to the Nordic architect he so admires, Sverre Fehn. On the 5th of June in Venice, Sverre Fehn was the celebrated designer, the architect of the Nordic pavilion in the Giardini Park. Also a quite extraordinary geometric structure, with a few trees enclose in the building.

Something which associates quite easily with the contribution made here in the Warande, by Ugo Rondinone, Pagan Void. Rondinone made especially for the Stardust exhibition a new edition of this earlier work. Amongst a number of trees, he planted geometrically a rectangle of fluorescent yellow painted pebbles. A reference to the ‘sun’? Hm, now the sun reflects even brighter patches in the fluorescent yellow pebble bed.
But still there are other nice things to explore. Statues that generate reflections or try to dissolve themselves in their surroundings. A mirroring surface is a miraculous thing, Jeff Koons already discovered. Small things like the makeover of a parkbench, a thing you easely miss... if you didn't saw the little glimmers in the back of the perforated bench. In the Oude Warande we see small things to forget, like the makeover park bench by Hendrik-Jan Hunneman, or a mysterious boat floating in the pond, by Maria Roosen or the tree tall hide and seek statues of José Pedro Croft in which complete trees disvolves: "I'm not there!"

All kinds of reflections, to puzzle the mind, in the same time as when you are looking at these refreshing examples of contemporary art. Then I haven’t pointed out to you, that there are also a few fairytale figures on higher ground in the park, like Fox and Otter made by Rona Pondick.And there are still others to see. To start this puzzling walk in the park, you almost think instantly that everybody got lost, by calls of the sound sculpure made by Job Koelewijn. No, it’s not the fairytale park of the Efteling your in. That's a bit further down the road near Waalwijk, in Kaatsheuvel. No it’s all to see in De Oude Warande, close to the University Campus in Tilburg. And probably twice as nice. Go and see it for yourself, it is open until 27th of September 2009, but it's surely as nice to visit, during the summer when the sun shines and the temperature under the trees in the forest is cool but not cold.

letterpress: 1. Grotto, Callum Morton; 2. Entree-shop; 3,4,5. Seurat, no Monet, Dan Graham; 6. Pagan Void, Ugo Rondinone; 7. Ik ben je vergeten, Hendrik-Jan Hunneman, 8. Blackberry/Braamboot, Maria Roosen; 9, 10. zt José Pedro Croft; 11, Otter, Rona Pondick.