What a heart-wrenching! The amazon rainforest goes up in smoke, under the eyes of the world helpless, pointing to the urgency to save our green heritage. The art, often the precursor, anticipates the news. As an act of premonition, the Cartier Foundation, architecture of layered glass in a garden for twenty-five years, celebrates the trees in an exhibition blazing. We the trees is an ode to both aesthetic, symbolic, and engaged to the king of the forest. A magic plant at the same time as a cruel awakening.
Since its inception, the Foundation has asked major questions of current events through shows like homeland , Addition starts here (2008) or The Great Orchestra of animals (2016), immersive installation and highly poetic Bernie Krause. In its quest to reflect the state of the world, the institution led by Hervé Chandès is concerned with the nature, the environment, climate change and its impact on migration, deforestation and the disappearance of indigenous cultures. Themes popular, treated around the cross view of artists and scientists.
over The course fascinating, combining natural vegetation, paintings, drawings, videos, made by artists from different countries, from Europe to South America, we are happy as far as one is concerned. There is plenty to marvel at in discovering the ficus centenary planted by Luiz Zerbini at the heart of a large installation where there is a mixture of timber and painted works. Between dream and reality, the paintings opulent give «the feeling of being in the painting as if it was in the middle of a forest,» says the brazilian artist, who composes his paintings, » he said, according to «a strict geometric grid» thus revealing the «wealth chart» of the plant world. We are moved also by the simplicity of the drawings naive to felt tip pens to color Ehuana Yaira, a young artist belonging to the yanomami people of the brazilian Amazon. Behind these trees, these fruits and leaves, she also speaks of rites shamanic.
Depardon with Agnès Varda
In modern societies, the urban users are also concerned about the survival of the trees. In the valley, vendée, Fabrice Hyber is transformed into an artist-the sower who plants thousands of seeds, and painted plant hybrids imagined. Quite to the contrary, the land that is Depardon filmed and interviewed, with his accomplice Claudine Nougaret, of the characters who cherish a tree and tell a story.
On the lower floor, things get tough. In Exit, scientific video produced by the american architects Diller Scofidio+Renfro, it’s full of figures and data, the speech is alarming. Inspired by the thoughts of the urban planner and philosopher Paul Virilio, author of que reste-t-il of our native land? (2009-2015), the duo presents the process of massive deforestation in three tropical forests in Brazil, Cameroon and Indonesia, combining the phenomenon of the disappearance of cultures and languages in the world. The future darkens. Then you have to get out in the gardens where Nini, the cat in bronze, Agnès Varda, is perched on the trunk of a tree. A tribute tender as a breath of fresh air.
We the trees, at the Fondation cartier, 261, bd Raspail (Xiv). Tel. : 01 42 18 56 57. Opening hours: everyday sf lun. from 11h to 20h, mar. up to 22h. Until the 10 nov.
