What About a Garden

Artists: Alessandro Bertelle, Stefan Peters, Jason Hendrik Hansma, Donald Judd, Mitja Tusek, Ewerdt Hilgemann, Nicholas Pope, Richard Long

This spring and summer, the interdisciplinary project What About a Garden takes place at Kasteel Wijlre estate. The project includes an exhibition, an educational program and talking routes through the park, the surrounding landscape and the city of Maastricht. What About a Garden is an initiative of Kasteel Wijlre estate and the Van Eyck (post-academic institute for fine art, design and reflection in Maastricht, the Netherlands), in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Writing/Universiteit Maastricht.

The works in the exhibition What About a Garden, taking place at the Koetshuis (coach house) of the estate, examine the significance of the garden for our thinking and our endeavours. A garden can be wonderful; it can comfort, calm, and relax. However, gardens also unsettle and provoke. The tension between growth and decline, awareness and unknowingness, and stagnation and life, unearths the garden’s inherent conflicts; a friction synonymous with one’s being and spirit. The exhibition includes works by three alumni of the Van Eyck: Jason Hendrik Hansma, Alessandro Bertelle, and Stefan Peters. Their work interweaves with artworks from the former Eijck Collection, which are part of the collection of the Bonnefanten Museum since 2012. With works by Donald Judd, Ewerdt Hilgemann, Niek Kemps, Richard Long, Mitja Tusek, Nicholas Pope, and Ger van Elk.

Extending the What About a Garden exhibition to the orchid greenhouse of the Hedge House, Stefan Cools presents his laboratory and ongoing artistic research on butterfly species and their residues. On June 28, a talking route will be organised, where Anneke Brassinga and several other writers and poets will read from their own work in gardens in the inner city of Maastricht. Artist Sanne Vaassen is currently researching the different scents that the estate’s park has to offer, which will result in a route that will be presented for the first time on July 3.

About Kasteel Wijlre estate
Kasteel Wijlre estate is an art centre where contemporary art and architecture converge with cultural heritage and nature. It presents larger and smaller exhibitions, interdisciplinary projects and events as well as educational activities in the contemporary art pavilion Bonnefanten Hedge House, the coach house, and the garden. The estate has presented artists such as Ger van Elk, Giuseppe Penone, Ad Dekkers, Peter Struycken, Tony Cragg, Carel Visser, Marlene Dumas, Rob van Koningsbruggen, and Jean-Marc Bustamante. Kasteel Wijlre estate is located in the south of the Netherlands and was founded by art collectors Jo and Marlies Eijck.