"One Earth, one chance" is the eco-imperative that links the philosophy and work of Frank Sander, whose new installation Human Nature is on view at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts from July 16 to September 5, 1999.

Frank Sander was born in 1949 in Hamburg, Germany. His childhood was shaped by art and the early awareness that his creative flow and his communications with others were best channeled through palnting and drawing (a fact that did not escape his father, who saved everything that young Sander made).

Sander's love for art and his early concern for the consequences of human behavior were intensified by the lasting effects of World War II. From 1943 until the war ended in 1945, Hamburg had been heavily bombed, and Sanderís memories are filled with rubble and people scavenging. He was preoccupied with the knowledge that skeletons and treasure lay buried beneath his city. Neighborhood friends had prevented an important collection of expressionist paintings from falling into the hands of the Nazis. Works by Franz Marc (including a small painting of blue horses), Emir Nolde and Otto Dix captivated young Sander, who lived just next door.

Following high school, Sander began a three-year carpentry apprenticeship and after completing it decided to study architecture which he did for three years: But architecture did not suit his temperament; he needed something more expressive, something more subversive. So he enrolled in art school again, he studied for three years, but he felt stifled by minimalism, the movement then touted by academic institutions around the world. In 1979 Sander set out in search of the form that could hold his expression.

He left Germany for Copenhagen, where he stayed for nearly two years.There he created a series of Super 8mm films that explored the relationship between time and movement. And he befriended an American who invited him to visit Minneapolis; an event that changed the trajectory of his life. After seeing the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and the northshore of Lake Superior, he knew that he would stay in Minnesota. The long winters and the character of the people resonate with his somber nature. Through the eighties Sander created a body of politically charged paintings and expressionist woodcuts. In 1990 he moved to Duluth. Ensconced in Minnesotaís Arrowhead region, Sander developed a profound appreciation for nature. Snowshoeing became a favorite winter pastime, Often taking him across land adjacent to the Knife River. "There is nothing like snowshoeing in the moonlight for an hour and a half or so, and 'stopping to rest with a thermos of hot soup," he says. Sander learned that if You are connected to nature; you can live very simply and through simplicity comes freedom. His commitment to healthy leasing of the earth is now apparent in virtually everything he does. From his design for passive solar homes to his recent prototype for a worm-composting greenhouse which was recently built by the Lake Superior Technical & Community College. It was funded by an environmental Minnesota State Grant.

As a mature artist, Sander combines his skills in carpentry, architectural, and fine art to produce environmentally sensitive structures and sculpture. A case in point is the small teahouse-like building in a ravine behind his former home. Created as a private retreat, it has thirty-two identical birdhouses attached just under its eaves. Inside lines of poetry scroll across the floor.

According to John Steffl, Artistic Director of the Duluth Art Institute, Sander "echoes a Germanic cultural theme extending from the earliest forms of nature worship to the landscape masterpieces of early northern Renaissance to the environmental performances by artists such as Joseph Beuys in the late twentieth century.

Sander's philosophy is also in tune with the work of the American ecologist and philosopher David Abram. In his powerful book The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram elucidates the enduring wisdom of oral cultures and the contributions made by the field of phenomenology to our current understanding that Nature is an interconnected matrix. He clearly explains that reciprocity, not hierarchy, is the real dynamic of life, (Your breath relies on the tree's exhalation; the tree's breath relies upon yours. You notice the tree; the tree notices you.) The crux of our trouble is that we have forgotten these things.