As Wanås became better known, more high-profi le
artists began taking on site-specifi c commissions.
Many of them visited the property for inspiration, and
they would often spend weeks installing their pieces.
Fascinated by the ritual of the estate’s deer hunts,
Abramović created The Hunt Chair for Animal Spirits,
a towering metal chair embellished with antlers, and
installed it in an overgrown fi eld. Maya Lin placed her
land-art piece Eleven Minute Line, a squiggly grass-
covered berm, in an active cow pasture. Jenny Holzer
carved hundreds of her truisms—witty philosophical
and political one-liners—into the old stones that
surround the property; the text is so small that you
often have to squat to read it. Some artists, joked Carl-
Gustaf, have been so entranced by their surroundings
they didn’t want to leave. He recounted how German
artist Stefan Wewerka, who created a small stepped
bridge over a stream, “fi nished his work early but
stayed on for a week, cooking soups and broths for us.”
While Marika was spearheading the world-class
art park, Carl-Gustaf was modernising the estate’s
farm, which had focused on livestock, milk
production, and forestry for centuries. Most of the
locals thought he was crazy when he decided totravelandleisureindia.intravelandleisureindia.in 109107