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Joseph Beuys: I wish to go more and more outside to be among the problems of nature and problems of human beings in their working places. This will be a regenerative activity; it will be a therapy for all of the problems we are standing before…. I wished to go completely outside and to make a symbolic start for my enterprise of regenerating the life of humankind within the body of society and to prepare a positive future in this context.

I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time. The oak is especially so because it is a slowly growing tree with a kind of really solid heartwood. It has always been a form of sculpture, a symbol for this planet.

Joseph Beuys, in: Richard Demarco, “Conversations with Artists”, Studio International 195, No 996 September 1982, p.46

Herman de Vries's sanctuarium, in Münster (northern Germany) in 1997, is a perfectly circular brick wall with no entrance to the inner sanctum, which is visible through four oval oculi, piercing the wall at eye-level at the cardinal points, the directions of the winds. Terrain vague is the future of cities; new worlds of experience, which guide our consciousness to a different order, away from the chaos of planning. the terrains vagues are the avant-garde of nature [cited in herman de vries, 'terrain vague (1999)', in exhibition catalogue No art - no city! Stadtutopien in der zeitgenössischen kunst = No art - no city! Urban utopias in contemporary art (Ostfildern 2003) 156-157]