Among the Trees

Stunning exhibition at the Hayward Gallery looking at how artists have been inspired by trees over the last 50 years and in contemporary art.

I must admit I though this show would be a bit dry and worthy but them were some wonderful pieces in it by artists I didn’t know and I found it a sea of calm and ideas.

I loved Giuseppe Pepone’s sculptures taking a block of wood and stripping it away following the rings in the wood and knot holes to release a man-made tree from inside it. In a similar vein I liked Kazuo Kadonaga’s tree trunk remade from the thin slices of wood veneer it had been cut into.

For once I thought two videos were the stars of the show and both were mesmeric and made you slow down and relax. Jennifer Steinkamp animation of a birch grove through the seasons condensed into three minutes was beautiful. I sat through it about three of four times to look in detail at particular season morphed into the next. Rodney Graham showed a sideways view of a huge pine tree over 6 screens perfectly set off by a figure in blue at the left-hand side. The sections of the tree were patched together to make the whole which blew gentle with a soundtrack of the wind in its branches and birds singing.

My favourite piece, shown here, was Eva Jospin’s Forêt Palatine which was a floor to ceiling wall sculpture of a forest made of wood and cardboard. As well a being a beautiful object I felt it was saying something about the materials with trees becoming wood and paper so these being used to reconstitute an image of a tree. 

Closes on 31 October 2020

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