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The tree obverse

By: Contributor(s): Publication details: Lower Hutt, N.Z. : Dowse Art Museum, 2012.Description: 60 pages. : illustrations ; 13 cmISBN:
  • 9780987668509 (pbk.)
  • 0987668501 (pbk.)
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Seeing the wood not the trees / Dorothee Brill -- The lacuna / Emma Bugden -- In a forest / Ann Shelton.
Summary: "Linking nature with nationalism, each of the 130 gold medallists at the fraught 1936 Berlin Olympic Games was awarded an oak sapling. Back in the athletes’ home countries, ‘Hitler Oaks’, as they are sometimes known, were planted in a variety of public and private sites, from civic parks and squares to a stadium, schools, and private gardens. Over time the trees have died, been chopped down or neglected, but photographer Ann Shelton has tracked remaining trees across Europe and the US. Often unmarked, those that have been recorded by their communities maintain an uneasy role; commemorated for their connection to success, yet tainted by the stigma of Nazi Germany. War memorials are usually built from permanent materials such as metal and stone and assume a monolithic status. Living trees might not be immediately recognisable as monuments, but Shelton’s work links each to its back story, providing a counter-memorial to official sites of mourning. Taking as her subject matter “trauma, anxiety, violence and failure”, she uncovers their obscured or lost histories. Ann Shelton’s photography is the result of detailed and intensive research, peeling back layers of history and building up new strata of meaning. In 2005, in her home town of Timaru, she captured the beginning of this series, the oak awarded to Jack Lovelock for his gold medal in the 1500 metres and subsequently planted in the grounds of his former school, Timaru Boy’s High School. The works are exhibited as a series of diptychs, presented as a set of inverted doubles, a format that allows us to experience the trees as a series of abstract shapes. This process, which Shelton has termed ‘stammering’, refutes a singular narrative, hinting at the constructed and uncertain nature of history itself."Emma Bugden, Curator-- Publisher website.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
Special Collection Special Collection Whitecliffe Library Staff office Special Collection NZ&P Photo Media Box 1 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Use in Library Only - Not for Loan 0014244

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'In a forest' by Ann Shelton at the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Exhibition dates: 12th May-19th August, 2012"--Colophon.

Includes bibliographical references.

Seeing the wood not the trees / Dorothee Brill -- The lacuna / Emma Bugden -- In a forest / Ann Shelton.

"Linking nature with nationalism, each of the 130 gold medallists at the fraught 1936 Berlin Olympic Games was awarded an oak sapling. Back in the athletes’ home countries, ‘Hitler Oaks’, as they are sometimes known, were planted in a variety of public and private sites, from civic parks and squares to a stadium, schools, and private gardens. Over time the trees have died, been chopped down or neglected, but photographer Ann Shelton has tracked remaining trees across Europe and the US. Often unmarked, those that have been recorded by their communities maintain an uneasy role; commemorated for their connection to success, yet tainted by the stigma of Nazi Germany. War memorials are usually built from permanent materials such as metal and stone and assume a monolithic status. Living trees might not be immediately recognisable as monuments, but Shelton’s work links each to its back story, providing a counter-memorial to official sites of mourning. Taking as her subject matter “trauma, anxiety, violence and failure”, she uncovers their obscured or lost histories. Ann Shelton’s photography is the result of detailed and intensive research, peeling back layers of history and building up new strata of meaning. In 2005, in her home town of Timaru, she captured the beginning of this series, the oak awarded to Jack Lovelock for his gold medal in the 1500 metres and subsequently planted in the grounds of his former school, Timaru Boy’s High School. The works are exhibited as a series of diptychs, presented as a set of inverted doubles, a format that allows us to experience the trees as a series of abstract shapes. This process, which Shelton has termed ‘stammering’, refutes a singular narrative, hinting at the constructed and uncertain nature of history itself."Emma Bugden, Curator-- Publisher website.

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