Forest of Dreams: Contemporary Tree Sculpture
The popular idiom “You can’t see the forest for the trees” suggests someone has become too detail oriented and unable to grasp the big picture. Within this metaphor, individual trees serve to obscure our perception of the greater wooded whole.
This saying gets turned on its head in the forthcoming Meijer Gardens exhibition Forest of Dreams: Contemporary Tree Sculpture, revealing instead that we often fail to see the tree for the larger forest. Immersed as we are in an arboreal planet, we tend to overlook the unique character of these distinctive
botanical beings. The 15 artists featured in this exhibition ensure trees don’t escape our attention, as they create riveting work spotlighting the magnificence and pathos of these living creatures.
Trees suffer the fate of other ubiquitous things: Because they are everywhere, they can disappear from sight. And while “familiarity breeds contempt,” to enlist another idiom, familiarity can also breed blindness. Trees have an extra disadvantage in gaining our attention, due to a phenomenon known as “plant blindness.” Coined by botanists in 1998, the term describes the human inability to notice plants and a general disregard for their value or beauty. Plant blindness is a hardwired bias, designed to filter out stationary nonthreatening elements like flora and to keenly note active, possibly dangerous agents, such as animals or moving forms. Within this perceptual hierarchy, plants register as background matter and are duly ignored in the quest for survival.
Enter the transformative magic of art, which has the power to pull subjects from the
shadows into the light of appreciation. Upon my arrival at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park over a year ago, Forest of Dreams was the first exhibition I conceived for the galleries. While it’s an obvious theme to explore here, with our dual mission of horticulture and sculpture, the works selected for this exhibition are anything but plain. Indeed the exhibition title signals a rich and hidden realm of trees activated by these varied artists, who together produce a forest of the imagination.
This title also suggests Surrealism, an artistic movement born some 100 years ago. Surrealist art sought to merge the spheres of unconscious and conscious, dream and waking, fantasy and reason, into a new “sur” or super reality that would expand our perceptual range. Surrealists prized the strange and uncanny, two qualities that abound in Forest of Dreams along with human-tree hybrids, animistic tree spirits, and other evocative woody presences.
In the same way this exhibition refreshes our kinship with trees, making the ubiquitous marvelous, it also offers an opportunity to get a new take on familiar artists in the Meijer
Gardens permanent collection. Four of the artists on view—Louise Bourgeois, Roxy Paine, Michele Oka Doner, and Ai Weiwei—have sculptures prominently sited in our Sculpture Park and gardens. After exploring the sublimely “unnatural” indoor forest, visitors can journey outside to become reacquainted with old sculptural friends by these and other artists who have engaged trees in their work.
Of course, not everything relegated to our peripheral vision deserves to be thrust in the limelight again. Such is not the case with trees, our silent though indispensable life companions. As every child learns in school, trees provide the oxygen required for us to live. We need trees like nothing else on Earth. This bond alone makes them worthy of our regard, if not our love. We can’t afford to treat trees with indifference or secondhand glances. And once you enter the Forest of Dreams, you will never be able to see trees the same way again ….
Suzanne Ramljak, Chief CuratorForest of Dreams: Contemporary Tree Sculpture will be on view October 20, 2023–February 25, 2024. The exhibition features the work of 15 exceptional artists, many of them never before exhibited at Meijer Gardens: Louise Bourgeois, Emilie Brzezinski, Nick Cave, Kim Cridler, Tom Czarnopys, Michele Oka Doner, Peter Frie, Hugh Hayden, Jim Hodges, Patrick Jacobs, Maya Lin, Robert Lobe, Roxy Paine, Rona Pondick, Ai Weiwei.
PROGRAMMING
Unless otherwise noted, programs are included in the cost of admission and registration is not required.
Metal Trees: A Sculpture Walk
Wednesday, October 25, 1–2:30 pm
Amber Oudsema, Curator of Arts Education at Meijer Gardens and Adjunct Professor of Art History at Grand Valley State University
Stroll the Sculpture Park and grounds to discover a trove of sculptures resembling and inspired by trees. Compare the outdoor works to those in Forest of Dreams and discuss tree symbolism while discovering the commonalities within our own sculptural arboretum.
Trees as Artistic Metaphor: Identity, Body, Fashion
Sunday, November 12, 2 pm
Suzanne Eberle, PhD, Professor Emerita, Kendall College of Art and Design
Survey the ways trees have been depicted throughout the history of fashion and art as metaphorical stand-ins for humans in various guises. Consider how artists have chosen to sympathize and identify with trees, as found in the Forest of Dreams exhibition and beyond.
Exhibition Tour: Into the Forest
Friday, December 1, 1 pm
Suzanne Ramljak, Chief Curator of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park
Enjoy an intimate journey into the depths of Forest of Dreams with exhibition curator Suzanne Ramljak. Explore the rich associations of the chosen work by 15 artists, and trace the thematic connections within the gallery and the larger cultural, historical, and environmental ties.
Member opening is October 19, 2023, from 6-8 pm.