The magical language of plants
C.G. Jung, The Tree of Life
One of the things that make 'The Botanical mind' a unique show in marvellous accordance with our momentum is that, as a structure, it keeps an organic quality very relevant with what it discusses. Actually, it was the pandemic situation that produced that need and brought out its organicity. In order to comply with the condition and find an audience, it evolved in new ways, becoming a rhizomatic show, if not a meditation (web)site-non site (in a Smithson approach) or an open encyclopaedia about re-approaching nature with new means, indigenous spirituality and empathy.
At the same time, the pandemic and all the issues that came out because of it, regarding anthropocentrism, vulnerability and the failure of western civilization, deduce the exhibition's subject to an urgent field of research and discussions.
Beyond everything else, it could always be considered an exhibition about healing in a general view.
Using ethnographical, philosophical, scientific and cultural research, and approaching its subject not only through the galleries but also through the web, with online projects, numerous articles and podcasts along with an illuminating publication, 'Botanical Mind' opens up to its spectators, readers and visitors like a tree — borrowing the form of its opening topic, the tree of life — expanding its thematic branches to a broad horizon of contemplation.
Visiting physically the exhibition was a spectacular experience that I feel lucky I had. However, I wish I had previously run through its website https://www.botanicalmind.online/, as the nearly exhausting amount of information it offers, reveals and clarifies the show's infrastructure.
David Tudor, this genius composer, student and collaborator of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, is the creator of the aery and bizarre sound composition 'Rainforest I', that welcomes —and prepares— the visitor before starting the long meditative trip into the galleries. Opening subject and central element of the curatorial research is the tree of knowledge that somehow predesignates the whole itinerary —actual and psychist.
The Cosmic Tree, Axis Mundi or Tree of Immortality, a recurring motif among religions, mythologies and popular culture, symbolizes the human condition's connection to the transcendental universe. From Eden to Druids and from Jung to Tolkien, the image of the big wise tree has been a creative and meditative inspiration since Neo Assyrian art up to now. We can see its manifestations among others in Carl Jung's mystic drawings, Delfina Munoz de Toro's spectacular universes of colours and Linder's surrealistic photographic collages.
Mandalas, the famous meditational circular designs that we meet in Hindu and Buddhist cultures as the universe's representation, are another frequent motive, often used as an artistic expression of interconnectivity and spiritual awareness. Mandalas' images are prominent throughout the show, their effect being utterly seductive in Daniel Rios Rodriguez's work, dizzying in Adolf Wölfli drawing meditations and mind-blowing in the pale energy fields of Gemma Anderson.
Like mandalas, several other symbols, primary forms and sacred geometrical patterns repeatedly emerge in nature and science, not only in natural morphologies but also in the visions induced by psychoactive plants. The Yawanawá, the Shipibo-Conibo and the Huni Kuin people, among others Indigenous populations in the Amazon Rainforest, inheritors of rare wisdom concerning plants and animals of their precious ecosystems, use as decorative motives for their ceramics, textiles and even their skin, natural geometrical shapes that they call 'kené' (sacred designs) and are connected with their cosmological myths. Artists all over time have been adopting all these secret geometries in multiple ways. They can be found inside musical compositions and non-objective films, in Anny Albers' embroidered 'Ancient Writings', in the multi-coloured playful abstractions of Yves Laloy or the enigmatic heraldic shapes of the mystic experimental cinematographer Jordan Belson.
Vegetal imagery is another dominant theme, manifesting the symmetry, beauty and expressive visual power of the plant kingdom.
According to Rupert Sheldrake, beauty is a natural mechanism inherent in the environment, expressing an internal resonance between the human mind and the universe. As he points up, "Darwin proposed that there would have been no flowers until there were eyes to appreciate them – designed by nature to attract mobile creatures to pollinate for them".
The flowery compositions of Joseph Kotzian, Anna Zemánková and Anna Haskel seem to research this idea with their focus on perplex seductive details, eye-catching symmetries and repetitions inside the structure of the flower. Meanwhile, the almost meditative Joachim Koester's black and white fractal landscapes are revealed to be a microscopic scan of cocaine alkaloids and cannabis plants' surface structure.
Some more artworks have an unbelievably possessing power:
Hilma af Klint's idiosyncratic abstraction in her 'Tree of life' (1913).
The cryptic biomorphic shapes of Ithell Colquhoun, another unknown woman artist from the past.
An ecstatic 'Tree of Jesse' by an anonymous 1520's painter.
F. Percy Smith's films (that I had the delight to watch three years ago, accompanied by Tindersticks' music composed especially for them) capturing the inner magic of natural processes in a dreamy manner.
Bruce Conner's spellbinding paintings and his inkblot Rorschach drawings.
The occult erotism of Penny Slinger's collages.
Fred Tomasseli's labyrinthian anatomy.
The alchemical rituals of Kerstin Brätsch.
A fantastic geometric mandala head from 1903 by Charles Filiger,
Henri Michaux mysterious mescaline ‘writings’.
The show is occupied by the spirit of great minds, along with several ideas and theories. Especially C. C. Jung's symbolism and research and Hildegarde of Bingen's natural cosmology and healing practice seem to run all over the exhibition's chapters. The Pythagorean Music of the Spheres, ancient Greek mythology, shamanism and the mysterious and undeciphered Voynich Manuscript contribute considerably in the theoretical and visual structure.
In conclusion, far from just an exhibition, 'Botanical mind' comprises a whole area of multidisciplinary investigation around the extraordinary issue of plant intelligence. And admittedly, it manages to balance with remarkable grace and credibility within entirely diverging fields as physical sciences, psychoanalysis, ecology, culture, and occult spirituality while providing enough stimulus for an in-depth reconsideration of our relationship with the natural world.