Julius von Bismarck I like the flowers (Philodendron bipinnatifidum), 2023
Pressed and dried plant, mounted on stainless steel plates
303 x 305 cm
“i like the flowers, i like the daffodils . . .” — the well-known children’s song lends its name to this series, which consists of plants and small animals that have been pressed flat. As in the children’s song, the beauty of nature seems to be the main theme here. in contrast to the childhood practice of pressing flowers between the pages of a book, however, or creating herbaria to classify and archive vegetation, the work converts large-scale plants and small trees into almost two-dimensional forms. suspended delicately in space, they become likenesses of themselves reminiscent of floral wall- paper or backdrops.
The plants presented here are not, however, mere images of floral beauty. They also allude to the brutality inherent in the Western concep- tion of nature. scaled up to the size of the plants on display, the violence of the works’ production becomes impossible to ignore. in an elaborate pro- cess, the plants are boiled and then robbed of their third dimension with the help of a 50-ton hydraulic press and press oven, and finally attached to a thin stainless-steel plate.
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