Trees like Stones

For over thirty years Klaus Merkel has been photographing stones, rocky landscapes, and trees that he pairs up in double pictures. He portrays the astounding harmony between the animate and the inanimate, between natural and designed manifestations. His previous publication Album of Stones featured Milan Cathedrals forest of figures and pinnacles next to the sandstone columns of Utahs Bryce Canyon. In the same way, Trees as well as Stones presents fascinating connections between natural forms and artwork, such as the millennia-old bristlecone pines in Nevadas Great Basin National Park and the decaying stupa temples of Burma. The book thus invites the reader to examine and compare the manifold similarities of diverse structures, whether between a petrified wandering dune and a gaping trunk of an olive tree in Agrigento, Italy, or between a mushroom rock in the Libyan desert and a Namibian quiver tree.

Klaus Merkel has been photographing stones, rocky landscapes and trees for over thirty years, which he pairs up in double pictures. He portrays the astounding harmony between the animate and the inanimate, between natural and designed manifestations. His previous Album of Stones had already featured fascinating affinities, placing the forest of figures and pinnacles of Milan Cathedral next to the sandstone columns of Bryce Canyon, among others. Trees as well as Stones also presents exciting connections between natural form and artwork, such as the millenia-old bristlecone pines in Great Basin National Park and the decaying stupa temples in Birma. The book thus invites the reader to examine and compare the multiple similarities of diverse structures, be it between a petrified wandering dune and a gaping log of an olive tree in Agrigent, be it between a mushroom rock in the Libyan desert and a Namibian quiver tree.

Autorentext

Klaus Merkel, born in 1940, has worked as an artist in Mexico, Spain, and Berlin since the 1960s. He has studied archeology, art history, and painting.