Friedrich Kunath: Include Me Out

Seven sculptures reminiscent of stylised spruce trees with scaly bark. Six of them stand in a circle, each appearing to hold hands with the next, three branches sweeping out to either side. The sculptures have faces with lowered eyelids, pointed noses and a hint of a thoughtful smile on their narrow lips. The sculptor Friedrich Kunath, who was born in in 1974 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) and now lives in Pasadena in the US, has placed a seventh tree sculpture outside the circle. Its lowered branches somehow convey disappointment.

The artist, who works in a range of media, has named his initially humorous and playful-looking group of sculptures Include Me Out. This famous, paradoxical statement by Hollywood film producer Samuel Goldwyn immediately raises the question of where we stand in this circle, and touches on social and societal primal fears.

Situated in the Buntsockenpark, which was once the site of a hosiery factory built by Bruno Neukirchner, the group of trees is also a reminder of the concept of sustainable forestry, as described by Saxony’s chief mining officer Hans Carl von Carlowitz in his 1713 work “Sylvicultura oeconomica”. This states that only as much wood as can grow back should be removed from the forest. But today people are very worried about the millions of spruce trees – once the staple of Saxony’s and Germany’s forestry industry – that are dying from lack of water. Our man-made climate catastrophe is thwarting the sustainability strategy formulated over 300 years ago.