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103
Visionary Environments from Europe, North America,
Asia and Africa.
Photographs by Deidi von Schaewen, text by John Maizels,
edited by Angelika Taschen. 340 pages, 700 photographs.
Text in English, French and German. ISBN 3-8228-7190-7.£24.99
Are you looking for inspiration? Are you searching
for visionary sparks that make you tremble with amazement
and wonder? Are you waiting to be startled into a
visionary awakening? Then simply open the pages of
this stunning volume! But beware - because even just
a brief glance at these pages will render views of
the normal environments that surround us (such as
gardens, installations, sculptures and buildings)
as unspeakably dull, sterile and wasted. The fabulous
creations displayed in this book remind us of the
unimaginative and uninspiring world that most of us
inhabit, in turn dulling our minds and our vision,
and diminishing our spirit. If only the creators of
the vacuous Millennium Dome in London had first seen
the wonders so profusely and magnificently displayed
in the pages of Fantasy Worlds!
This
book provides spectacular photos of 103 of the most
extraordinary Ovisionary environments¹ from around
the world. One of the most moving elements of the
book is the discovery from John Maizels¹ text that
almost all the creators of these fantasy worlds came
from simple and humble beginnings, rarely having received
any tutoring or art education. These creators had
no plans or drawings for their palaces and shrines,
their towers and grottoes, their strange sculpted
beasts and figures; their constructions simply grew
organically. They did not use normal building materials,
but made use of whatever was to hand - broken crockery,
glass, scrap metal, driftwood, old dolls, cars parts,
shells, bottles. One cannot fail to feel in awe not
only of these creators¹ infinite inventiveness, but
of their lifelong dedication and passion to their
unique vision of an alternative reality. As John Maizels
concludes in his excellent Introduction to the book,
³These untutored geniuses have created a unique artform².
The
photos of each site are accompanied by a short paragraph
about the creator and the story that lies behind the
work. In many cases I would have liked to have learned
more, but space for the text was clearly limited,
and the photos themselves reveal so much. The sites
that moved me most deeply were those that contain
monumental beasts and figures, created from cement
and mosaics, or from scrap metal and waste materials.
Le Parc-exposition, one of the innumerable amazing
visionary environments in France, looks particularly
stunning. This park of 5000m2 on the Mediterranean
coast was created by former blacksmith Raymond Morales.
The park contains over 700 towering and menacing-looking
sculptured metal figures which appear to be hybrids
of animal/ human/insect. Another fabulous-looking
visionary environment is Il Parco dei Tarocchi (the
Tarot Garden), in Tuscany, which has been created
Niki de Saint Phalle*, assisted by Jean Tinguely,
while Scottish artist Alan Davie painted the interior
of one of the giant figures. Here, the photos show
colossal colourful figures rising above the treetops.
Each figure symbolises an element from the Tarot,
and is covered in shimmering mirror, glass and ceramic
mosaics. I was also stunned by the images of the ³Forevertron²
in Wisconsin, USA. This massive visionary device for
space travel has been contructed by Tom Every, a former
industrial salvage worker, using over 300 tons of
waste machine components; 35m high, it contains a
vast complex of tubes, wheels, and pipes, as well
as being flanked by giant and beautiful bird-creatures.
Only four visionary environments from the UK (England)
have been included: The Cement Managerie, in Northumberland
(near Coldstream), a wonderful garden of cement animals
and figures; The Little Chapel, decorated with pebbles
and shells, in Guernsey; the Shell House and Garden,
Bournemouth; and the Watford Shell Garden. There are
many other sites of wonder in Britain, including Scotland,
and hopefully one day these will also be documented
in a volume of similarly beautiful productive quality.
This book also provides a comprehensive bibliography
and a useful list of addresses of the sites, and of
related organisations.
Fantasy Worlds is very modestly priced given the fact
that the high quality and the profusion of colour
photos, together with the text, will transport the
reader into the visionary realms of these genius creators.
At a time when so many of us are searching for a way
to enrich our spirit, this book can help us in this
task - for it reveals that the human spirit can transcend
the shallow constraints and expectations of modern
living to produce a magical expression of our true
selves.
Judith
McNicol
*A fabulous example of Niki de Saint Phalle¹s sculptures
can be seen at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art,
where her vividly coloured fibreglass sculpture of
The Great Devil is displayed in the mirrored foyer
that she designed; also, the room is lit by a series
of coloured ceiling lamps mounted on a scrap metal
sculpture created by Jean Tinguely.
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