ART CITIES:Paris-Trees
Bringing together a community of artists, botanists, and philosophers, the exhibition “Trees” echoes the latest scientific research that sheds new light on trees. Organized around several large ensembles of works, the exhibition “gives voice to numerous figures who, through their aesthetic or scientific journey, have developed a strong, intimate link with trees, thereby revealing the beauty and biological wealth of these great protagonists of the living world, threatened today with large-scale deforestation.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Fondation Cartier Archive
Featuring drawings, paintings, photographs, films, and installations by artists from Latin America, Europe, the United States, Iran, and from indigenous communities such as the Nivaclé and Guaraní from Gran Chaco, Paraguay, as well as the Yanomami Indians who live in the heart of the Amazonian forest, the exhibition explores three narrative threads” our knowledge of trees from botany to new plant biology; aesthetics from naturalistic contemplation to dreamlike transposition; and trees’ current devastation recounted via documentary observations and pictorial testimonies. The exhibition revolves around a number of individuals who have developed a unique relationship with trees, whether intellectual, scientific or aesthetic. the botanist Stefano Mancuso, a pioneer of plant neurobiology and advocate of the concept of plant intelligence, has collaborated with Thijs Biersteker to create an installation that “gives voice” to trees, and through a series of sensors, reveals their reaction to the environment and pollution, as well as the phenomenon of photosynthesis, root communication and the idea of plant memory. The traveling botanist Francis Hallé, whose notebooks display both the artist’s wonder at trees and the precision of an in-depth knowledge of plants. His work is a testimony of the encounter between science and sensibility. At the heart of the exhibition lies a reflection on the relationship between humans and trees, which is also the subject of Raymond Depardon’s film. It paints the portrait of the plane trees and oaks that shade village squares through the words of those who are familiar with them, and to which many memories, ranging from the highly personal to the historical, are connected. Fabrice Hyber has planted some 300,000 tree seeds in his valley in Vendée, and offers a poetic and personal observation of the plant world in his paintings, questioning the principles of rhizome growth, energy and mutation, mobility and metamorphosis. Guided more by the aesthetics of an intuitive collection than by a search for scientific rigor, Brazilian artist Luiz Zerbini, on the other hand, composes lush landscapes, organizing the imaginary meeting of trees, borrowed from tropical botanical gardens, and the markers of urban modernity. The drama of the destruction of the world’s great forests, conveyed in particular by the film “EXIT” by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, comes after the dreamlike world of Paraguayan film-maker Paz Encina who offers an internalized image of the tree as a refuge for memory and childhood. Retaining the trace of the artist’s hand on its trunk, Giuseppe Penone’s bronze tree sculpture finds its place in the garden of the Fondation Cartier. Also on display is a sculpture by Agnès Varda, specially imagined for this project
On show are works by: Efacio Álvarez, Herman Álvarez, Fernando, Allen & Fredi Casco, Claudia Andujar, Eurides Asque, Gómez Thijs Biersteker, José Cabral, Johanna Calle, Jorge Carema, Alex Cerveny, Raymond Depardon & Claudine Nougaret, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Paz Encina, Charles Gaines, Francis Hallé, Fabrice Hyber Joseca, Clemente Juliuz, Kalepi, Salim Karami, Mahmoud Khan, Angélica Klassen, Esteban Klassen, Cesare Leonardi & Franca Stagi, George Leary Love, Stefano Mancuso, Sebastián Mejía, Ógwa, Marcos Ortiz, Tony Oursler, Giuseppe Penone, Santídio Pereira Nilson Pimenta, Osvaldo Pitoe, Miguel Rio Branco, Afonso Tostes, Agnès Varda, Adriana Varejão, Cássio Vasconcellos, Ehuana Yaira and Luiz Zerbini.
Info: Curators: Bruce Albert, Hervé Chandès & Isabelle Gaudefroy Associate Curators: Hélène Kelmachter & Marie Perennes, Curatorial Assistant: Juliette Lecorne, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 261 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, Duration: 12/7-10/11/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.fondationcartier.com
