There are an infinite number of different trees – the same applies to people!
An explanation for the affinity that humans have with trees, which they perceive as a kindred spirit. This is why Dietrich Klinge’s “Tree-Man” speaks to the viewer so directly. A tree skeleton, lignified, covered in lichen and moss, leafless and flowerless, reduced to the essentials. A saying comes to mind: “A person is like a tree: not right-angled in body and soul, rather crooked and gnarled”. On closer inspection, the question arises as to whether the shape analogy is meant as a distinction at all. And suddenly we realize that the artist has led the viewer off the right path of the tree’s positive connotations: The family tree as a symbol of origin and legacy, the union of the branches to form the head of the tree and the crown, fine and subtle ramifications as symbols of human veins and physiological cycles. – Instead, the tree-man appears “crooked and gnarled”, overgrown instead of grown; a being that does not live in symbiosis with itself entirely voluntarily. The suddenness with which the artist brings this realization to the viewer is striking. The ramification becomes a crossroads, the branching becomes a fork – where to? This remains unfathomable.
