Trees

This summer, the Power Station of Art and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will present the exhibition Trees. With more than 200 artworks from over 30 artists from China, Latin America, India, Iran and Europe, the exhibition celebrates trees as a source of major aesthetic inspiration for human societies. It also echoes the latest scientific discoveries that shed new light on tree intelligence. Through paintings, photography, videos, drawings and installations, the exhibition brings together the testimonies, both artistic and scientific, of those capable of looking at the vegetal world with wonder. Trees aims to reveale the beauty and biological wealth of these great protagonists of the living world, threatened today with large-scale deforestation.

In 2019, Trees was first exhibited at the Fondation Cartier in Paris with the initial name Nous les Arbres and met with resounding success. Organized in cooperation with the anthropologist Bruce Albert, the exhibition brought together a community of artists, botanists, and scientists such as Francis Hallé, Stefano Mancuso, Luiz Zerbini, and Fabrice Hyber, who, through their aesthetic or scientific careers, have established a strong and intimate bond with trees.

Two years later, the Fondation Cartier and the Power Station of Art have created an extended version of the exhibition that goes beyond the exploration carried out in Paris. Not only has the exhibition been enriched with works by the Chinese artists Huang Yongping, Hu Liu, and Zhang Enli, but the Italian architect Stefano Boeri and his Shanghai-based studio have created a special installation that enables guests to explore Liuzhou Forest City, a next-generation urban architecture model that contains over 40,000 trees. Trees also brings visitors on an audiovisual journey, enhancing the sensory experience and amplifying the voices of the artists, scientists and philosophers who have collaborated on this project. To accompany the exhibition, PSA and Fondation Cartier will organize a number of special events including screenings, conferences and performances.

The latest in a series of collaborations between the Power Station of Art and the Fondation Cartier, this exhibition follows the footsteps of A Beautiful Elsewhere, Junya Ishigami: Freeing Architecture, and Jean Nouvel: In my head, in my eye… belonging…. The exhibition’s curatorial team is made up of Bruce Albert, anthropologist, Hervé Chandès, General Director of the Fondation Cartier, Fei Dawei, art critic and exhibition curator, Isabelle Gaudefroy, Director of Programing and Artistic Projects at the Fondation Cartier, and Gong Yan, Director of the Power Station of Art.

Location: 7F, PSA
Organizers: Power Station of Art, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
The curatorial team: Bruce Albert, Hervé Chandès, Fei Dawei, Isabelle Gaudefroy, Gong Yan
Artists : Bruce Albert, Grga Basic, Stefano Boeri, Jake Bryant, Johanna Calle, Alex Cerveny, Ehuana Yaira, John Gerrard, Francis Hallé, Hu Liu, Huang Yong Ping, Fabrice Hyber, Luc Jacquet, Joseca, Kalepi Sanöma, Mahmoud Khan, Cesare Leonardi, François-Michel Le Tourneau, Stefano Mancuso, Sebastián Mejía, Santídio Pereira, Jivya Soma Mashe, Jérôme Schlomoff, Franca Stagi, Afonso Tostes, Adriana Varejão, Cássio Vasconcellos, Luiz Zerbini, Zhang Enli
Special thanks to the support of Consulate General of France in Shanghai. This exhibition is part of the Croisements Festival 2021.