TREES July 12 – November 10, 2019

PRESS RELEASE

Bringing together a community of artists, botanists, and philosophers, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain echoes the latest scientific research that sheds new light on trees. Organized around several large ensembles of works, the exhibition Trees 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 pro-tagonists of the living world, threatened today with large-scale deforestation.

Underestimated by biology for a long time, trees—like the entirety of the plant kingdom—have been the subject of scientific discoveries in recent years that have allowed us to see the oldest members of our com-munity of living beings* in a new light. Boasting sensory and memory capacities, as well as communication skills, existing in symbiosis with other species and exerting a climatic influence, trees are equipped with unexpected faculties whose discovery has given way to the fascinat-ing hypothesis of “plant intelligence,” which could be the answer to many of today’s environmental problems. In resonance with this “plant revolution,” the exhibition Trees merges the ideas of artists and researchers, thus prolonging the exploration of ecological issues and the question of humans’ relationship to nature, which has been a regular theme in the Fondation Cartier’s exhibi-tion program, as was the case recently with The Great Animal Orchestra (2016).

Francis Hallé, Strangler fig, Rio Maru, Peruvian Amazon, 2012. © Francis Hallé.

Salim Karami, Sans titre, 2009. Courtesy of the Galerie Polysémie, Marseille, France. © Salim Karami.

EXHIBITION

* While trees are among the oldest living organisms on the planet—the firstknown fossil forest dates back to 385 million years ago—the plant worldconstitutes 82.5 percent of the biomass. Humans on the other hand, are just300,000 years old and represent only 0.01 percent of this organic matter.

PRESS OFFICERSophie Lawani-Wesleysophie.lawani-wesley@fondation.cartier.com Tel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 65

PRESS MANAGERMatthieu Simonnetmatthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.comTel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77

PRESS RELEASE

Featuring drawings, paintings, photographs, films, and installations by artists from Latin America, Europe, the United States, Iran, and from indigenous communi-ties 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 exhibit, punctu-ated by several large ensembles, explores three narrative threads. Firstly, our knowledge of trees—from botany to new plant biology—; secondly, aesthetics—from natu- ralistic contemplation to dreamlike transposition—; and lastly, trees’ current devastation recounted via docu-mentary observations and pictorial testimonies.

Orchestrated with anthropologist Bruce Albert, who has accompanied the Fondation Cartier’s inqui- sitive exploration of such themes since the exhibition Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest (2003), the project revolves around a number of individuals who have developed a unique relationship with trees, whether intellectual, sci-entific or aesthetic. For example, 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, thus making the invisible visible. Another of the great figures who has played a role in constructing the exhibition is traveling botanist Francis Hallé, whose notebooks display both the artist’s wonder at trees and the precision of an in-depth knowl-edge 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 his-torical, are connected. Artist and sower, 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 princi-ples 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, com-poses lush landscapes, organizing the imaginary meeting of trees, borrowed from tropical botanical gardens, and the markers of urban modernity. To this pictorial exuber-ance responds the conceptual and systematic inventory elaborated by architect Cesare Leonardi, in collabora-tion with Franca Stagi: a typology of trees, their shades and chromatic variations, in a precious corpus compiled for the purposes of the design of urban parks. The ghostly silhouettes of Johanna Calle’s tall trees evoke with poetry and delicacy, the fragility of these giants threatened by irreversible deforestation. 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.

Luiz Zerbini, Philodendron Vermelho I, 2018.Collection of the artist, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. © Luiz Zerbini. Photo © Pat Kilgore.

Cássio Vasconcellos, A Picturesque Voyage Through Brazil #28, 2015. Collection of the artist, São Paulo, Brasil. © Cássio Vasconcellos.

EXHIBITION

PRESS OFFICERSophie Lawani-Wesleysophie.lawani-wesley@fondation.cartier.com Tel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 65

PRESS MANAGERMatthieu Simonnetmatthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.comTel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77

PRESS RELEASE

PRESS OFFICERSophie Lawani-Wesleysophie.lawani-wesley@fondation.cartier.com Tel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 65

PRESS MANAGERMatthieu Simonnetmatthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.comTel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77

The garden of the Fondation Cartier, a natural extension of the exhibition, was created in 1994 by artist Lothar Baumgarten. The public are invited to stroll through the trees which, like the majestic Lebanese cedar planted by Chateaubriand in 1823, inspired Jean Nouvel to create an architecture of reflections and transparency, playing on the dialogue between inside and outside, and giving rise to “fleeting emotions.”

Nestled in the vegetation, a discreet double of nature, 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. Finally, for a week in the fall, the Theatrum Botanicum will become the natural support of a video installation by Tony Oursler.

The exhibition Trees restores the tree to the place from which it had been stripped by anthropocentrism. It brings together the testimonies, both artistic and sci-entific, of those capable of looking at the vegetal world with wonder and who show us, to quote philosopher Emanuele Coccia: “There is nothing purely human, the vegetal exists in all that is human, and the tree is at the origin of all experience.”

Curators: Bruce Albert, Hervé Chandès, Isabelle Gaudefroy

Associate Curators:Hélène Kelmachter, Marie Perennes

Curatorial Assistant: Juliette Lecorne

DIGITAL

A NEW WEB SERIES FOCUSED ON FIVE ARTISTS

Through exclusive interviews of Francis Hallé, Luiz Zerbini, Stefano Mancuso & Thijs Biersteker, Afonso Tostes and Fabrice Hyber—be it in their art studios or daily lives—, the artists tell us more about the bond they forged with trees and the influence of nature on their respective creative processes. Conceived as a five-episode series, the interviews are available at fondation.cartier.com.

QR CODES TO DISCOVER THE GARDEN jardin.fondationcartier.com

On the occasion of the exhibition Trees, the Fondation garden—true example of urban biodiversity—uploaded its website (jardin.fondationcartier.com) with new and enhanced content: an interactive map and pages dedi-cated to each of its 24 trees species. This content, placed in the garden, is designed as QR codes the visitor have to scan to read.

Sebastián Mejía, série Quasi Oasis 17 (Avenida Simón Bolívar, Santiago, Chili), 2012. Collection of the artist, Santiago, Chile. © Sebastián Mejía.

EXHIBITION

Fabrice Hyber, Tenu, 2005.Private collection, Paris. © Fabrice Hyber. Photo © Marc Domage.

PRESS RELEASE EXHIBITION

On the occasion of the exhibition Trees, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain releases two exceptional publications.

Trees Exhibition catalog

The exhibition catalog introduces, through nearly 500 pictures and a vast gathering of scientific and critical studies, the entirety of the art pieces exhibited. Combining the artworks with writings of painters, pho-tographs, architects, sculptors, philosophers, botanists, and climatologists, the publication reveals the beauty, ingenuity, and biological richness of trees, plunging the reader into the fascinating world of these great protago-nists of the Earth.

Texts by Bruce Albert, Emanuele Coccia, Misha Gromov, Francis Hallé, Stefano Mancuso, Miroslav Radman, Ursula et Verena Regher, et Abigail Swann.

French and English versionsHardback, 24 × 31,5 cm, 376 pagesPrice: 49 € Publication date: July, 2019

Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi L’Architecture des arbres A reference work on trees

L’Architecture des arbres is an outstanding book, the result of a legendary botanical study carried out by Italian archi-tects Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi for more than twenty years, initially designed for urban parks’ planning. It gathers more than 550 drawings of 212 trees species, every single one of them drawn at a scale of 1:100.

This aesthetic and scientific study—first published in 1982—is a reference work for architects, lands-capers, and designers, as well as anyone fas-cinated by trees and their infinite variety.

French version onlyHardback, 25,5 × 38 cm, 424 pagesPrice: 95 €Publication date: July, 2019

In December 2019 the Fondation Cartier plays host to a large solo exhibition devoted to Claudia Andujar, con-ceived by Thyago Nogueira, director of the contemporary photography department at the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, where Andujar’s work was recently shown. Considered one of Brazil’s greatest photographers, Claudia Andujar has, both in terms of her commitment and her work, played a fundamental role in the recognition and protection of the Yanomami Indians living in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest, who are trying to preserve their way of life and shamanic traditions.

For her second solo show at the Fondation Cartier in December 2019, the internationally acclaimed artist Sarah Sze will present two immersive installations in the gallery spaces of Jean Nouvel’s iconic building. Sarah Sze is best known for her intricate, immersive, and gravity-defying installations composed of hundreds of commonplace objects. Commissioned by the Fondation Cartier, her new works will explore how the proliferation of images—printed in magazines, gleaned from the Web, intercepted from outer space—fundamentally changes our relation to physi-cal objects, memories, and time.

December 12, 2019 › May 10, 2020

CLAUDIA ANDUJAR, THE YANOMAMI STRUGGLE

December 12, 2019 › May 10, 2020

SARAH SZE

PRESS OFFICERSophie Lawani-Wesleysophie.lawani-wesley@fondation.cartier.com Tel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 65

PRESS MANAGERMatthieu Simonnetmatthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.comTel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77

PRESS RELEASE EXHIBITION

PRESS OFFICERSophie Lawani-Wesleysophie.lawani-wesley@fondation.cartier.com Tel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 65

PRESS MANAGERMatthieu Simonnetmatthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.comTel. +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77

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

Luiz Zerbini