Withered sunflower stems
/4
- Withered sunflower stems
- Verblütete Sonnenblumenstängel
- 1979
- 4 b&w vintage prints
- 24 × 17,7 cm
The life trajectories of plants played a major role in shaping Ștefan Bertalan’s artistic thought. Only a few plant species, however, represent recurring themes in his art, and those that do occupy a special place. One such plant, the sunflower, gave rise to his holistic view of existence in this world, becoming a paradigmatic model that he studied in drawings and photographed throughout its entire life cycle, which lasts around 130 days. As the artist confessed in a self-produced audio recording, his objective was similar to that of a seed – to open himself up to the world in order to render it comprehensible. Therefore, reading nature, understanding it, conceptualizing it became Bertalan’s authentic mode of working. The many drawings he produced in connection with the sunflower are tantamount to a systematic, disciplined dissection that closely follows its dynamics of growth and death. The presence of written notes in conjunction with precisely dated excursuses detailing his observations transforms his drawings into palimpsests where philosophical reflections exist alongside clear indications of how to read a plant’s motions and gestures, how to view its geometries. Bertalan’s photographs capture the installations that he conceived for the study of the sunflower at his home in Timișoara, with the plant being held in place by a grid of strings. They document the various stages of growth and decay, indicated by features such as parched stems or the flattened leaves. The step from there to the enhanced communion evident in his performance “I lived for 130 days with a Sunflower Plant” (1979) was a natural one, and his detailed recordings of the full cycle of a sunflower’s existence motivated his further reflections upon the universal inner correspondences that exist between plants and humans. A.Se.