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Nomad Studio: Green Varnish, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, May 23–September 13, 2015. Photograph by Alex Elmestad
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Based in New York and headed by landscape architects William E. Roberts and Laura Santin, Nomad Studio is known for their innovative combination of art and design with natural elements. Their temporary, site-specific installation, Green Varnish, is in the interior courtyard of the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis and will be on view from May 23 until September 13, 2015.
Green Varnish is comprised of two components—a constructed, wooden armature and a vegetated blanket of sedum that covers it, combining and contrasting architectural design and sculpture with nature. Its green surface spreads out, and its corners are upturned, conveying a sense of lightness that is at odds with its materials and scale, like a giant piece of paper that has floated down—but not quite settled—on the ground. The living installation nearly fills the 45-by-50-foot space, and its colossal scale borders on sublimity. Green Varnish takes ownership of the space, pushing visitors to the edges of the courtyard. Because of this, it instills a feeling that is almost claustrophobic, but this is somehow counteracted by a more salient desire to be near nature. The lush cover of vegetation evokes a calm that quietly combats the dis-quietness caused by the scale of the immense armature. The green covering reflects from the museum’s floor-to-ceiling windows and forms an optical field that swells and expands into the gallery and café. Shadows from the courtyard’s rafters shift throughout the day, and Green Varnish is activated by the surrounding architecture as shapes and negative spaces slowly drift across its surface. Earthy smells of sod and plant life pervade the air, instilling tranquility to custodial concrete walls.
Comparisons to Joe by Richard Serra, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s permanent work housed in the courtyard shared by the two institutions, are almost inevitable. Both are monumental, architectural works that exploit the possibilities of space with art and sensory experiences. Visitors can walk through Joe, winding through the torqued spiral of Cor-Ten weathering steel. Serra’s sculpture is made of an unforgiving industrial material, curled up and brimming with energy, while Green Varnish is coated with living strata. Its surface is soft, opening out, and relaxed. Both works seem to strive for simplicity and formal purity, and while their materials evoke different sensations, both are unique in their self-sustainability. Weathering steel develops a protective, rust-like layer on its surface under the influence of weather, and therefore eliminates the need for painting. Sedum is a resilient perennial that is drought resistant, and consequently capable of enduring St. Louis’s notoriously hot summers. Nomad Studio uses this succulent foliage as a medium that, like weathering steel, requires little to no maintenance.
Set against the courtyard’s minimalist architecture, Green Varnish emits a sense of calm, offering an unexpected moment of green among concrete and gravel—an urban oasis that offers provisional relief to our primal want to be among natural surroundings.
The Contemporary Art Museum–St. Louis is located at 3750 Washington. CAM has scheduled a series of talks with local landscape architects inspired by Green Varnish; you can find more information on that, plus details on museum hours and other exhibits on view, at camstl.org.
