TREES DIE STAND: Plants and humans Curated by Freda Uziyel: Aviv Benn, Yifat Bezalel, Jyll Bradley, Dorothy Cross, Osman Dinc, Susan Hefuna, Mustafa Hulusi, Gary Hume, Merav Kamel & Halil Balabin, Goshka Macuga, Simon Moretti, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Schütte, Daniel Silver, Paloma Varga Weisz, Sam Taylor (Wood) Johns
Overview
Thomas Ruff, flower.s.17, 2018, C-Print, 139 x 119 cm (framed), Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Thomas Ruff, flower.s.17, 2018, C-Print, 139 x 119 cm (framed), Edition of 6 + 2 AP

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Three years ago, while opening the front doors of the house, I found my old prunus tree laying down on the soil of the front garden. As the tree was full of buds, just before it’s early spring flowering, I could not understand what happened. But at the same moment to my memory come a title of a play by Alejandro Casona, written in 1949:” Trees Die Stand”. The play was a metaphor of human behaviour:

“Do not see me fall. Dead inside, but standing tall. Like a tree”, says one of the protagonists- the grandmother.

My reaction of sadness mingled with thoughts about human nature and how much we are not only part of it, but also how much we are conditioned by it, formed the foundation of the idea for this exhibition.

 

- ‘The artwork is candidate for contemplation and or, appreciation’, Georgie Dickie

“Trees Die Stand: Plants and Humans” focus and captures intellectual and various ways in which artists relate to nature.

The artists who take part in the exhibition, did not imitate nature, they look for creative ideas, often not unlike to that of processes of nature.

The roots, branches of trees, leaves and flowers are simplified in forms, sometime strongly exaggerated, or abstracted and united, going through metamorphosis to become a new form.

 

This exhibition places plants and natural world at its heart. We know, that humanity, could not live without them. “We are here by the grace of trees and forests” (Richard Powers-novelist). To be humble towards the nature, to see its beauty and its ordinariness, to observe it, to bow to trees and flowers it is sign of devotion and kind of religious act.

 

—— An excerpt from Freda Uziyel's text

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Press release

Pi Artworks London is delighted to present TREES DIE STAND: Plants and Humans curated by Freda Uziyel, bringing together different generations of artists including Aviv Benn, Yifat Bezalel, Jyll Bradley, Dorothy Cross, Osman Dinc, Susan Hefuna, Mustafa Hulusi, Gary Hume, Merav Kamel & Halil Balabin, Goshka Macuga, Simon Moretti, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Schütte, Daniel Silver, Paloma Varga Weisz, and Sam Taylor (Wood) Johnson.

 

TREES DIE STAND: Plants and Humans features on diverse mediums and captures intellectual and various ways in which artists relate to nature. This exhibition places plants and natural world at its heart because humanity could not live without them.

 

As curator Freda Uziyel states, “We - people feel so close to nature, that we throughout history and diverse civilisations are recognising in the patterns of nature, a real meaning. Many of us see suddenly that the bark resembles face. It is a cognitive process: by just looking, we imagine something of ours or us. Seeing faces in trees is a human condition”.

 

TREES DIE STAND: Plants and Humans investigates significance of our coexistence with things that grow in soil. At the time of our lives shadowed by pandemic, fears of climate change and biological dark forces, TREES DIE STAND: Plants and Humans seeks to posit an antidote that something filled with love that we rarely realise it exist in us - the love of trees and all that’s grows in soil.

 

TREES DIE STAND: Plants and Humans runs from 25 November 2021 to 7 January 2022, Tuesday Saturday, 12 - 6 pm or by appointment.

 

For detailed information, images and interviews please email to london@piartworks.com or jade@piartworks.com or send a WhatsApp message to +447718425153.

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