Stahn Marcel

 

Marcel Stahn | Arte Laguna PrizeMarcel Stahn
Ruhr Area, Germany 1984


It’s all I can do

Art section: Photography

Dimensions: 55.3 x 86 cm

Year: 2022

Technique: Intervention on photography

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Description

Woods usually drain away with human and his culture, this already knew philosopher Giambattista Vico in1725. Since then, there is an undisputed level of romanticism proceeding from trees. Thereby this long-term vegetation has so many varieties and the woods (romantically a colourful collection of species) are the natural landscape of our latitude. It seems that our relationship with trees is troubled. This does not have to be, for children for example any fruiter is better than a climbing frame on a playground. Not at least since Hermann von PĆ¼ckler-Muskau we know how ideal natural scenarios have to be build to create especially beautiful views through branches. Parks, grown by tree farmers, built everywhere. Already Napoleon prompted to plant plane trees along country roads and places in citys to afford shadow to his soldiers. And as time goes by our urban areas grew around older trees or has been added by new plantings. Sometimes trees are standing in a surrounding that let them appeal very special. Some trees are grown under conditions what makes them extraordinary. Some are small and stocky, others knobbly and knotted. Again others grew streamlined with the wind on the edge of a cliff. The tree is in focus of a search of the artist for notably shapes and scenarios against the background of its importance as a carbon storage and source of shade. Trees are wood, which accord’ng to its chemical components, consits of around 50% carbon. With photosynthesis and constant growing every cubic meter of wood absorbs up to a ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turns it into oxygen. External influences have shaped these selected trees, that were found along the way. With an intervention in the photo, the image has been transformed into a surreal investigation. A kind of double image emerges, one can see the living tree in almost all its glory and at the same time an image comes up of what the landscape would look like without it.

This work is in an edition of 15.

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