Hikers in the Safien Valley will have noticed striking new additions to the landscape in recent weeks as the second biannual Art Safiental festival brings experimental sculpture to the Swiss mountains.
Some 15 sculptures and 30 temporary installations have been commissioned for the art extravaganza, which runs until 21 October takes the theme of ‘horizontal-vertical’. We’ve picked out the highlights.
‘HIMMEL III‘ by Bildstein | Glatz
Swiss-Austrian duo Bildstein | Gatz are extreme sports enthusiasts and have built an 11-metre-high sports ramp in Turrahus. Yellow guidelines instruct would-be daredevils on their trajectory…
‘Transparent Earth Part I’ by Lita Albuquerque
A naked blue female form lies atop Tenner Kreuz’s peak. Transparent Earth Part I is one half of an installation by Albuquerque that tells the story of a 25th-century female astronaut whose ‘mission is to seed interstellar consciousness on our planet’.
‘Eghschi Shell’ by Bob Gramsma
This mind-boggling 20-tonne concrete shell is ‘floating’ on alpine lake.
‘Light circle in the Safiental’ by Ingeborg Lüscher
Land artist Ingeborg Luscher has created a closed circle out of yellow sulphur in a meadow above Tenn.
‘Waiting to catch a cloud’ by Karolin Schwab
Installed near the village of Tenna, whose altitude of 1700 metres means it’s often blanketed in clouds, this sculpture invites hikers to sit, wait, watch and enjoy the landscape being enveloped.
Read next: High culture –: a guide to art in the Alps
