The work of art appears dizzying with every further step it entices you to take: Héctor Zamora's walk-in sculpture “Strangler” takes visitors to this year's Bruges Triennial up to thirty meters in the open air.

Like bright red scaffolding made of steel, the lattice cube nestles in the branches of a black pine in the green belt of the city.

On the lower levels of the construction you can still feel comfortably embraced by the tree.

But the stairs lead over the crown until the final platform - with an astonishingly low parapet - allows a bird's eye view of the historic old town.

For those who feel fearful here, the motto of the open-air sculpture show becomes emotion.

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the features section.

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    “TraumA” with bulky capitalization at the end of the word, the third edition of the Bruges Triennale for contemporary sculpture in public space, would like to invite you to take a city walk on the borderline between “dream and nightmare, paradise and hell”. Thirteen artists are there with their interventions, in churches, on squares and on canals. They carefully scratch the picture book facade of the world heritage city, to which tourists are gradually returning in this second Corona summer - masked and on their guard.

    Till-Holger Borchert, who as director of the city museums of Bruges, is also one of the curators of the Triennale, admits to put the show into action in pandemic times that are still unpredictable.

    Now she should send “a sign of life”: contemporary art in Flanders is back on the streets.

    From an aerosol point of view, this is the safest place for an exhibition anyway.

    Through the darkness to the light

    Self-discovery trip, attraction course and stations of prayer: "TraumA" offers, quite touristy, enjoyment of art for which no prior knowledge is required. Information is provided by brief texts on boards at the respective exhibition location. “Niederwellig” is the ugly German word for such things; In Flemish art education, the attitude without resentment is the program. You don't have to know Hieronymus Bosch and the “Ascent of Souls” through the tunnel of the near-death experience to feel your way towards light in the pitch-dark of the maze of “Black Lightning”.

    Gregor Schneider, so fascinated by the last things, placed his installation in the church of the seminary - the surrounding nave becomes a dead space, an architectural concept that Schneider explored in 2001 with his “Totes Haus ur” in the German pavilion of the Venice Biennale ( for which he won the Golden Lion). Even without this knowledge, the textile zigzag through black remains an immersive (and corona-compliant) experience of isolation that relishly exhausts the physical experience. Is that fun, horror, meditation? That depends on the temperament.

    The pseudo-vegetation constructed from leafless loops of branches, which the Brazilian Henrique Oliveira laid over part of the medieval city fortifications, also looks eerily beautiful. The supposed triumph of nature over culture is an ornamental fake made of recycled material, like the one Oliveira installed in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In Bruges, the illusion of a withered monster tendril could refer to something difficult to conceal even behind thick walls - Flemish Catholics may think of the cases of abuse in the diocese. “Banisteria Caapi (Desnatureza 4)” also arouses ecological associations with uncontrollable nature as well as with its destruction - and at the same time gives visitors an excellent selfie motif.

    Meanwhile, Laura Splan designs dangerous germs worthy of adoration: Even before the Covid crisis, the American artist dealt with microbiological structures. In the former Pest Hospital, the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Potterie Museum, a video installation in the form of a triptych digitally unfolds new virus-like shapes, white on black like bobbin lace. The reference to local craftsmanship is very up-to-date here. Amanda Browder (with strikingly draped patchwork prints) and Nnenna Okore (with an alienating tower shell) also refer to the textile industry in the form of monumental wrapping of buildings.