LASM continues to branch out and bridge the gap between art and science

Last year, the focus was on the sun. This year, it’s on something that benefits greatly from the sun’s light: trees.

The new exhibition “Lovely as a Tree” opened in August at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum. The pieces on display show how a variety of artists interpret the trees that give us shade, oxygen, materials for building and much more.

The exhibition takes a similar angle to last year’s “Sun Light/Star Light,” in which artists interpreted the science of the sun and its energy through a variety of mediums, such as videos, photographs and large lighting installations.

With “Lovely as a Tree,” you’ll find a similar study of trees through works including tall columns of layered sycamore leaves extending from floor to ceiling, a tree trunk cross-section that was converted into a record—its rings acting as the record’s grooves—and a scale model of an old-growth Alaskan balsam poplar made out of salvaged wood. The tree trunk record is shown via video, with the haunting piano notes of the tree’s “song” tinkling and reverberating around the museum space.

“We’re trying to more and more interweave our art and science initiatives,” LASM curator Elizabeth Weinstein says about putting the show together. “So the sun and trees are more of a theoretical idea that I start with, and then I have to find the art to carry it out.”

The exhibit spans multiple galleries at the museum, with pieces from national, international and Louisiana artists in the mix. Two New Orleans artists are featured in the main gallery: Ron Bechet’s charcoal drawings of the gnarled root systems of trees, and a digital drawing on large metal panels from Dawn DeDeaux. The latter piece is part of DeDeaux’s ongoing series about mankind’s future; a fallen oak tree is set amidst the ruins of a spaceship meant to carry us away from a post-apocalyptic Earth.

“The point of the whole exhibition is really to make you look at something so familiar and open your eyes to it and kind of re-engage people with trees—because we need them, obviously,” Weinstein says.

“Lovely as a Tree” continues through Nov. 27 and provides the theme for this year’s LASM Gala “Branch Out,” set for Sept. 23 at the museum. Find out more at lasm.org.