古巴艺术家 Tomás Sánchez 的风景画作品，以其令人屏息的细腻与精神性广受赞誉。他的画布上常出现的是宁静、广袤且几乎理想化的自然景象：郁郁葱葱的热带森林、镜面般平静的湖泊、被薄雾笼罩的山谷。这些场景仿佛超越现实，带有一种冥想式的氛围，邀请观者进入内心的静谧之地。Sánchez 并不将自然当作单纯的写实对象，而是将其视为心灵的投影。他在访谈中曾表示，绘画对他来说是一种精神练习，是通向沉思与觉察的方式。他常花费数月甚至数年精心完成一幅作品，用画笔一点点铺陈出自然的秩序与宁静。在当代艺术纷繁喧嚣的语境中，Tomás Sánchez 的风景画就像一处心灵的栖息地，提醒我们关注内在、倾听寂静，也让人重新意识到大自然所蕴藏的神圣与永恒。

Usually when a museum is flooded with water, something has gone seriously wrong. But at the Fondation Beyeler just outside the Swiss city of Basel, the flooding of the museum is all part of the show: a new site-specific installation called Life by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

The artist has removed one side of the Renzo Piano-designed building (with the architect’s blessing) and let the feature pond—usually separated from the climate-controlled interior by a large glass wall—into the museum. Visitors can navigate the waters, which are up to 80cm deep, using a series of walkways that run in and out of the building. At night, the interior is lit up with blue light.

Eliasson has also dyed the water a fluorescent green and filled it with pond plants, including water lilies and shellflowers selected by the landscape architect Günther Vogt. The water has been coloured using uranine, an organic dye that is commonly used to observe water currents, and which Eliasson has used previously for his Green River (1998) work where he dyed rivers in cities such as Stockholm, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

In an accompanying artist statement, Eliasson writes: “Together with the museum, I am giving up control over the artwork, so to speak, handing it over to human and non-human visitors, to plants, microorganisms, the weather, the climate—many of these elements that museums usually work very hard to keep out.”

The southern side of the building will be open to the elements for the duration of the show, which ends in July. Eliasson writes that “even if no human visitors are in the space, other beings—insects, bats, or birds, for instance—can fly through or take up temporary abode within it.” This possibility is very much part of the work, with the artist adding that when he first spoke to the museum’s director Sam Keller about ideas for the show, he thought to himself: “Why don’t we invite everyone to the show? Let’s invite the planet—plants and various species”.

The show is open 24 hours a day. “Visitors can access the installation at any time. After 9.30pm they do not need a ticket,” says a spokeswoman. She adds that, in terms of non-human visitors, so far there have been “insects, spiders, ducks, a goose and cats.”