Julien Friedler he is a multifaceted artist. In recent years, the Italian public has come to know and appreciate him for the canvases from the expressionist approach of his latest project, Mapping , from which very interesting personal exhibitions have been drawn (a Palermo And Villa Lagarina in 2020, a Padua in 2021).
However, not everyone knows that in parallel with research in the field of figurative art, Friedler has been cultivating a multidisciplinary project for years through the association Spirit of Boz – Julien Friedler for contemporary art , a body created in 2008 to promote the program Be Boz Be Art , which included the creation of three symbolic works (“Around the Boz in 80 years”, “The Book of Boz” and “The Celestial Tramp”) and which still supports all of the Belgian artist's projects today.
Among the most interesting declinations of the program Be Boz Be Art there is the La Forêt des Âmes/The Forest of Souls . It is a work that is constantly fed by the answers that are given to a questionnaire that collects some fundamental questions for the human being: does God exist? How can we characterize this era? How do you see the future? She's happy? Is sexuality important? Who am I?
In Friedler's project, the collected answers, preciously preserved, will constitute the very substance of the work. In fact, all the questionnaires will be enclosed in boxes which will then be stacked in columns; each column materializes a tree. From the multiplication of trees a forest will emerge. A forest of souls. The work in this photo (9 columns) is the prefiguration of this forest.
The questions of La Forêt des Âmes/The forest of souls they are questions at the center of existential investigations that constitute the engine of the development of our cultures. The team of Spirit of Boz travel around the world to distribute and collect the questionnaires needed to build this very special Forest. From Togo to the Amazon, passing through the United States, Indonesia, Rwanda, Argentina, Belgium, Tibet, the questionnaire has already arrived in many countries, also reaching Rome in 2018. Undertaken in 2006, this adventure presents itself as the inverse of our conception of time: the unfolding of Tour du Boz it is foreseen, in fact, in 80 years.