NANAÉ SUZUKI

Still Life with Trees / Stilleben mit Bäumen 2006
Oil on wooden boards, 7 pieces

Bombs destroyed the cookhouse at Schloß Georgium in 1945. What remained was the portico, borrowed from ancient temple architecture. Many visitors have assumed it was an artificial ruin. Here Nanaé Suzuki hung seven oil paintings high up on the two rear pillars, with a dense grove of trees as a backdrop. She selected details from kitchen still lifes by 16th and 17th century Dutch, French and Spanish painters and copied them with her characteristic highly painterly workmanship. On a platform raised by a few steps was a metal plaque – like a store sign – with handwritten descriptions, names and dates of the copied pictures; the last line read: »Nanaé Suzuki Still Life with Trees / 2006«.
This open-air installation of original paintings gained special significance as part of the project »Art in the Georgengarten«, located near the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie. (Johanna Bartl)