AMONG THE TREES Beautiful, stirring forest of art This group exhibition, presented at London's Hayward Gallery, explores the complex human relationship with trees and forests, as well as their role in our lives and imaginations THIRTYSEVEN INTER NATIONAL ARTISTS DRAW OUR ATTENTION TO TREES, awe-inspiring life forms that they are. In meditative works across different media, the artists ex- plore how trees – which have lifespans far exceeding our own – challenge how we think about time and consider how intimately entangled trees are with human affairs. Among the Trees trans- ports us around the world, from the Colombian rainforests and re- mote Japanese islands, to olive groves in Israel and a 9,550-year- old spruce in Sweden. At a time when the destruc- tion of the world’s forests is ac- celerating at record speed, Among the Trees surveys how artists have responded to the crucial role trees play in our lives and imaginations. Spanning the past 50 years – a pe- riod that coincides with the mod- ern environmental movement – it brings together artworks that
those characteristics in an attempt to engage us in an exploratory process of observing. Unlike classical landscape representations, many of the exhibited works avoid the easy orientation of- fered by foreground, vista and horizon. Instead they invite us to lose ourselves and to experience – on some level – that uncanny thrill of momentarily losing our way in a forest, and seeing our surroundings through fresh eyes.
ask us to think about trees and forests in different ways. Environmental writer Barry Lopez has noted that “woods defeat the viewfinder... they cannot be framed”. Even a single bough can stretch the limits of our visual comprehension. With layers of interlacing branches and thousands upon thousands of leaves (a mature oak might have well over 200,000 leaves in summer), trees are stun- ningly complex and often visually confounding. Many of the artists participating in this exhibition highlight
Among the Trees » Među drvećem | 69
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator