1 Lost Paradise - Armin Kerber

Lost Paradise – Foreword
structures with a new scatological horizon. To the south, Sol LeWitt’s Cube
occupies the topography – as stoically and hermetically as the Kaaba –,
complementing the rounded shapes of Piano’s Waves and the tethered
helium balloon in the Wyssloch valley. There, beyond the motorway in
front of the museum, the field that descends to the idyllic Egelsee pond
has been transformed into a playground for art. A skull-shaped sauna by
Joep van Lieshout is located next to the old barn containing a video installation
by Aernout Mik; three camouflaged blind walls have been set in
juxtaposition to the row of buildings along the stream – the work of Basel
artists Claudia and Julia Müller allows us to catch a glimpse of a magical
forest full of picture puzzles. Our balloon will take two visitors at a time
to the lofty height of sixty metres, whence they can enjoy Angelus novus’
perspective of the world below – a spectacular experience. In a combined
effort by the Botanical Garden Bern, the Stadtgärtnerei Bern, Zentrum
Paul Klee and gardening apprentices from four nurseries and garden centres,
the shores of the Egelsee pond have been transformed into a mysterious
serpentine garden made more enchanting by Pierre Huyghe’s gentle
wind chimes. Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree will accept the visitor’s most eager
wishes written on slips of paper and tied to the tree; they will be collected
and taken to a special place on Iceland at a later stage. Garden designer
Regula Treichler and landscape architect Doris Tausenpfund interviewed
Livia Klee, the daughter of Dessau Bauhaus Master Hannes Meyer. Almost
ninety years ago, behind the Master’s House, the little girl met Klee’s son
Felix, whom she was to marry decades later. Her memories of that “garden”
have been transformed into Livia’s Garden. Finally, the French artist
collective Claire Fontaine has mounted neon lights on the tower of the old
“Burgervilla” that houses Restaurant Schöngrün: like a Sibylline oracle,
words light up at intervals, reading “You” “will” “go” “to” “war” “not”
“come” “back” “die”.
The spectacular Ostermundigen quarry, where Klee used to paint, virtually
forms the head of East of Eden. A Garden Show. It is already an integral
part of the existing network of “Paths to Klee” that take visitors
from Bern’s central train station to Zentrum Paul Klee, and on to the
quarry, a half-hour walk further along. In a nearby woodland Thomas
Hirschhorn – back in Switzerland for the first time since Federal Councillor
Christoph Blocher was voted out of office – has set his installation
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