Campagne Première Berlin

In the context of the 4th Berlin - Paris gallery exchange, Nina Koidl and Henning Weidemann are pleased to present the video work Parque do Flamengo by the Brussels based artist Sophie Nys represented by Galerie Emmanuel Hervé, Paris.

The subject of this film project, Parque do Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro, was designed by Roberto Burle Marx between 1954 and 1959 and finally completed in 1965. Burle Marx (1909-1994) was next to a painter, singer, sculptor and landscape ecologist the most extraordinary landscape architect of the twentieth century.
In 1932 he made his first garden for a private residence designed by the architects Lucio Costa and Gregori Warchavchik. The 3000 designs that will follow gave Burle Marx undisputed world fame and he is also considered responsible for introducing modernist landscape architecture in Brazil. The urban and architectural projects for the new area - including the Museum of Modern Art - were under the management of architect Afonso Reidy (1909-1964) and Burle Marx.

The park, seven kilometers long, with a total area of 1.200.000 m2, provides space for an expressway, an artificial beach, banks, bridges, tunnels, museums, monuments, recreation and above all, more than 1000 plants and trees.

„Burle Marx believed that the collection, identification, propagation, and recomposition of the Brazilian flora in urban parks in such large masses and such striking compositions would in the end help turn the wilderness of Brazil’s endangered environment, into an intimate experience that everybody could understand, value, and therefore eventually protect.“ (Rossana Vaccarino)

Objective of the film project is a semi-documentary film whose main character is a park with an undeniable social role. Arto Lindsay was asked to compose the soundtrack based on the plants used by Burle Marx in the Parque do Flamengo.

Sophie Nys (born 1974 in Antwerp, lives and works in Brussels) is interested in history: art history, history of philosophy, history of the great figures of history or dictatorial practices of power. This eclecticism of centers of interest around the historical practice is found in the work of the artist in the form of thematic declinations and variations. Far from being flippant, her installations and video work, though seemingly ironic, maintain their eloquence as poetic reflections on her subjects derived from the every day. Recent solo and group exhibition includes: CIRCUIT, Centre d'art Contemporain, Lausanne (solo); ProjecteSD, Barcelona (curator Moritz Küng; solo); Kunsthalle Zürich; Galerie Emmanuel Hervé, Paris (solo); Wiels, Brussels (curator Elena Filipovic & Anne-Claire Schmitz); Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels (solo).

For digital image material and additional information, please contact us by telephone or e-mail:
Galerie Campagne Première Berlin, Kristina Bewersdorff
phone: ++49.30.40054300
mail: bewersdorff@campagne-premiere.com