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Stephan Balkenhol, Jules De Balincourt, Michael Cline, Klodin Erb, Juul Kraijer, Claudia Losi, Roxy Paine, Pavel Pepperstein with a site specific installation by Wangechi Mutu

In a quest for recovering menaced nature, in recent years artists have represented, re-created or used trees as complex images and powerful symbols.

For the exhibition in Zuoz Wangechi Mutu (*1972 Nairobi, lives in New York) is creating a tree that will grow from one room of the gallery into an other, first covering the ceiling with its branches and then piercing through into the room above. It will be built from simple means such as grey, felt-like blankets made of recycled materials and brown parcel tape, in a similar way to the installations she has realized earlier this year at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (May 2010) and at the Wiels Museum in Bruxelles (June 2010). It evokes the improvised buildings found in Shanty Towns, at the same time being organic and mysterious. She says: “The tree is the center of many mythologies, many rituals and many a rupture in human expression, both ancient and contemporary, secular and sacred. These 'warm trees' are an enactment onto architecture of something that has always represented our humanity”.

Roxy Paine's (*1966 New York) large sculptures in stainless steel are essential representations of trees and at the same time embodiments of energy streams. Monumental examples of his “Dendroid” sculptures have been shown on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum and in Central Park in New York in 2009. The exhibition includes drawings and a stainless steel sculpture model.

The work of Italian artist Claudia Losi (*1971 Piacenza, lives in Piacenza) revolves around themes of nature, natural history and science. She collects and photographs lichen, that are among the most ancient forms of life and grow only in places were the air is pure. She then embroiders their shapes and colors on canvas, thus mimicking their physical and tactile presence as much as their shapes. They become a kind of synthesis of landscapes and insular maps, microcosms in which the sense of the coexistence of different layers of time becomes physical.

Since almost thirty years Stephan Balkenhol's (*1957 Fritzlar/Hessen, lives in Meisenthal) sculptures are made of wood, or we could say: trees. The living material they are made of can be felt in the final work: the skin of the figures has the natural color of cut wood, knots and splits remain visible as much as the artist's gestures on the surface. We will show new works at the gallery and the large outdoor sculpture "Grosse Kopfsälue" near the lake in St. Moritz, in collaboration with SAM, St. Moritz Art Masters.

The lush and funky paintings of Jules De Balincourt (*Parigi 1972, lives in Brooklyn) reflect on contemporary ways of life, often portraying people in nature - the myth of recreation and freedom oscillating between tourism and utopia, where the dream can easily become a nightmare.

Michael Cline's (*1973 Cape Canaveral, lives in New York) images describe an imperfect and cruel world. He represents contemporary fables of poverty, illness, addiction, sex and violence with a painterly style reminiscent of Georg Grosz or Otto Dix. In his paintings plants and trees are witnesses to human's weaknesses and wickedness.

In the paintings of Swiss artist Klodin Erb (*1963 Winterthur, lives in Zürich) the forest is sketchy, dark and mysterious as a memory that combines fear with nostalgia.

Russian artist Pavel Pepperstein (*1966 lives in Moscow) evokes and combines different imageries and cultures past and present with subtle irony and wit. For this exhibition he has created a new group of drawings, where trees appear as seen through the styles of different avant garde movements.

The Dutch artist Juul Kraijer (*1970 Assen, lives in Rotterdam) has chosen charcoal drawing as her main expressive medium. With a light, transparent, but definite line she creates the mutating figure of a young woman being transformed or interacting with other creatures or natural elements. The images do not depict real situations, they are metaphors, emblems, representations of states of mind.