Gallery 13 is pleased to present Michael Kenna’s first European exhibition dedicated to his new book “Tree” published by Skira.

The protagonists of this exhibition will undoubtedly be the trees that have always fascinated Kenna and are a recurring element, almost an obsession in his work.

For almost fifty years, Michael Kenna, an artist enjoying worldwide success, heir to the English aesthetic and photographic tradition, has been producing an impressive œuvre of silver gelatin black and white photographic prints which he makes himself in his own darkroom. He has devoted the great majority of his work to the landscape.
Often taken at dawn or in the middle of the night, his photographs focus mainly on the interdependence between natural landscapes
and those where human beings have left their mark.
This great traveller has always been fascinated by natural architecture and the structural power of trees in the landscape. The often wintry character of his settings reveals the exceptional beauty of his subjects, the balance of forms, the harmonious and geometric development of branches and trunks.
“I like to get to know trees intimately,” he says. “I spend a lot of time walking around them trying to become acquainted with them. In fact, it’s as though I talk to them.” For several minutes, even hours, he waits and ascertains the truth about the specimen that attracts him.
Lying on the grass, with the lens pointed at his model, Kenna gradually comes to grips with the giants he is observing. Thanks to very long exposure times, which can last up to ten hours, his images reveal elements that the human eye is usually unaware of or unable to perceive.

How can we fail to understand Michael Kenna’s passion for trees?
Didn’t the poet Philippe Jaccottet say that it is thanks to them that “the sky takes root”? An unusual species, they live simultaneously in the earth and the sky, in the air and the light, as well as in the humus.
Trees are also great artists who never stop growing, developing and sculpting themselves. They chisel their shapes, are simultaneously linked to the long passage of time and are in perpetual regeneration. Some trees may be several centuries old and others only a few weeks. They are thus connected to immortality and confront us with human limits.

Covering the volume and the exhibition is the beautiful photograph taken in South Korea where the image is bisected by a in the diagonal from which rises this lone tree that defies gravity and seems poised ready to slide over the slope.