The Broad will reimagine a famed Joseph Beuys reforestation project The initiative coincides with a major solo show of the artist’s work
By Annabel Keenan
The Broad museum in Los Angeles announced today that it will embark on a reforestation project that will see the replanting of 100 native oak trees in Elysian Park, with additional saplings in Kuruvungna Village Springs. Inspired by 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks) (1982-ongoing)—a groundbreaking work by the German artist and environmental activist Joseph Beuys that saw the planting of 7,000 trees paired with basalt stones in and around Kassel, Germany—the initiative is part of the Getty’s PST Art programme of exhibitions across the city.
Entitled Social Forest: Oaks of Tovaanga, the reforestation project will begin with the planting of saplings and accompanying sandstone boulders this autumn and will coincide with Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature, a major solo exhibition at the museum opening on 16 November. Together, the projects highlight the artist’s concern for the environment and invite viewers to consider present-day social and ecological issues.
“Beuys’s work and activism addressed environmental concerns that still resonate today,” Sarah Loyer, curator and exhibitions manager at The Broad, tells The Art Newspaper. “He was a founding member of the German Green Party, as well as an artist who sounded the alarm about the climate.”
In Defense of Nature will feature over 400 works from the museum’s vast collection of the artist’s oeuvre, including pioneering pieces such as Felt Suit (1970), as well as several multiples that Beuys created using humble objects and materials to illustrate the capacity for social and environmental activism in the everyday. The show was organised by Loyer and the Beuys scholar Andrea Gyorody, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu. The exhibition will also highlight Beuys’s 7000 Oaks, tying into the museum’s reimagination of the project. First undertaken as a performance and installation, Beuys created the work to grapple with the trauma of the Second World War.
“Beuys said to never stop planting, and we took inspiration from that message to think of what that action can mean in Los Angeles in 2024,” Loyer says. “The project is about environmental activism as well as reconciliation. We wanted to know what reconciliation and healing looks like for us today. We decided to engage Tongva (Gabrielino) leaders to understand what this project should look like through the perspective of the Indigenous inhabitants of this land.”
