What’s the best way to photograph a tree? The South Korean artist Myoung Ho Lee explores reality by installing a canvas behind trees native to his country, or creating an “unreality”, by placing it in the middle of the desert. He’s been photographing the trees of his homeland in this way since 2006, observing each tree for four whole seasons before he photographs it. After he has taken his picture, he Photoshops out any clues of how the canvas is positioned, so that it appears to float—a gestural play between nature and artifice, portraiture and landscape traditions, and the effect of nature and its representation. What it doesn’t tell you, still, is whether when a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, it makes a sound.
