A rich tradition of tree art has sprouted in biennials across the world, with installations composed of saplings, snags, and perennials in various stages of development popping up at seemingly every big art event. (A recent case in point: the centerpiece of last year’s inaugural edition of the Sky High Farm Biennial in Upstate New York was a 1972–73 Harrisons piece resembling an orchard featuring actual trees planted in a gallery.) In 2022, the trend spurred Wallpaper to ask: “Tree art is putting down roots: branching out or barking fad?”
It is now a question worth posing in New York, where more than a few galleries this season have turned over their spaces to arboreally themed shows. In these exhibitions, artists are painting living trees, reusing dead ones, and even using bark as canvas. Branches, leaves, forests, and groves are the true stars of the winter season.
None of this is exactly shocking, of course. Ecologically minded artists have been with us forever, and climate change dominates the headlines like never before, even as conservatives and corporations seek to make the rest of us forget its existence. But the arboreal turn is more than just a referendum on saving the trees. It’s also about the value of listening to the earth at all when doing so can feel quietly radical.
Many of these shows went on view as the Trump administration continued to repeal measures intended to protect the environment. (Just this month, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency made the decision to stop tracking the health effects of air pollution.) These exhibitions feel like an implicit response to all that. But it is notable, too, that these exhibitions are not only by Americans—they are by artists from Asia, Latin America, and Europe as well. The call to save the trees is a cross-national one, then. It’s also a call to save the world.
Below, a look at five current New York shows themed around trees.
