sky

It stands there with a branch reaching out to the left and to the right like two arms stretched out to defend himself from the inside out against the concrete casing, this stony grip, and at the same time the tree’s body experiences optimal support. As if they wanted to blow up and break out the concrete, the cut surfaces of the same branches are also visible on both sides of the sculpture. Here, too, the ambivalence of the interplay of tree and concrete becomes clear, because the branches looking out on all sides.

The surface, which normally appears as protective skin or attractive packaging, often with the potential for deception, is here to be equated with the otherwise hidden centre.

And the three sides that are closed in themselves to be concreted show the structure of the shuttering panels and thus sweep out the inside of the wooden shuttering that has given the still liquid concrete hold until it has set and reached its strength.

The tree is unmistakably locked up. The concrete doesn’t allow anything to develop or move except perhaps the fine branches in the wind that protrude out of the monolith at the top. His performance is achieved through the grown form, which takes on anthropomorphic traits for us observers and reminds us how the body, society, structures often turn out to be a prison and everyone has to fight for opening, for transparency and permeability.