TURNER'S TURN

Turner’s Turn by Nino Baumgartner. Commentary by Rebecca J. Squires. 

Turner’s Turn, an aerial investigation by Nino Baumgartner, evokes the hovering, vertiginous view of Schöllenen Gorge encountered in J.M.W. Turner’s 1802 painting series. A drone surveys the span of the Devil’s Bridge, while the flattened planes of the canyon walls flicker between the second and third dimension, re-orienting themselves according to the trajectory of the drone, tossed about by the wind. Subverting the human-observation-centered, empirical legacy of the picturesque, Baumgartner shows the subject-objectification of the landscape through a non-human perspective. The instantaneous conversion from nature to art, intrinsic to the picturesque gaze, is now perceived and transmitted by the drone. Nature’s sublime, terror-inducing power, expounded by Burke and Kant, is registered in the disoriented wobble and audible reaction of the drone. The drone crash lands in the snow, struggling to right its artificial horizon.

NIESEN MANEUVER

2016-2021

I tried to walk up the most painted side of the Niesen. Always imagine that I am walking in a painting. The idea is to get a closer look to the painted object, the mountain. I included some of the paintings from the Niesen and tried to navigate with them through the dense forest. I could not reach the top yet. The Eastside of the Niesen is almost unclimbed and dangerous. The rock is very loose and there are some heavy cliffs. But still, there must be a way up. After 3 Days I finally found a way up to the top of the Niesen. 

TIME COVID MANEUVER