“Isolation (Felswand)” (2024), wood, canvas, paint, light, 15 x 7 x 5 meters. All photos © Studio Fabian Knecht, shared with permission
Walk into one of Fabian Knecht’s installations, and you’ll likely smell the dewy, herbal scent of moss and the sweet musk of wood, fragrant evidence of life growing amidst clinical, fluorescent lights and stark walls. Branches, grass, and water features appear as if they’ve been cut to fit the exact dimensions of the gallery and transported from their native habitats into the classic white cube.
Playing with the tensions between interior and exterior and nature and culture are enduring interests for artists, although Knecht takes a particularly intriguing approach. Rather than bring the living world into the gallery, he builds structures out in the wild, temporarily enclosing fragments of the environment. Part of his Fictional Nature series, the unconventional installations shift perspectives on the tension between inside and out and how we think about our relationships with the natural world.
Knecht just completed his largest and most elaborate iteration titled “Isolation (Felswand)” in St. Salvator, Austria. Cloistering massive craggy stones harboring several trees, the site-specific installation soars seven meters above ground and was created as part of the Art Residency Reisenberg. Situated on an 18th-century farm surrounded by 700,000 square meters of forest and meadow, the program is located on a hill in the Carinthian mountains, the rocky topography from which appears in Knecht’s work.
Fictional Nature has appeared in cities across Europe, with many installed in the Berlin-based artist’s native Germany. Find more from the series on Knecht’s website, and follow him on Instagram to stay up to date with his latest projects.
“Isolation (Felswand)” (2024), wood, canvas, paint, light, 15 x 7 x 5 meters
“Isolation (Felswand)” (2024), wood, canvas, paint, light, 15 x 7 x 5 meters
“Isolation (Felswand)” (2024), wood, canvas, paint, light, 15 x 7 x 5 meters
“Isolation (Stamm)” (2018), Baden-Baden, Germany
“Isolation (Stamm)” (2018), Baden-Baden, Germany
“Isolation” (2019), Berlin
“Isolation (Waldstük)” (2022), Dörpketal, Goslar, Germany
“Isolation” (2020), Nuit Blanche Paris
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