Artist: Mitch Epstein

Zander Galerie presents American Arbor, an exhibition of large-scale photographs by Mitch Epstein spanning the last two decades. Bringing together images of trees from American Power, Hoh Rain Forest, and his most recent series Old Growth, the show traces Epstein’s sustained exploration of the relationship between landscape and culture in the United States. In these series, Epstein photographs trees near energy production sites and in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in the moss-covered Olympic National Park in Washington and in ancient forests across the country. These towering works illuminate how trees are indicators of environmental vulnerability yet also powerful symbols of endurance.

Across three seminal series, Epstein establishes a dialogue between the environment, human society and time. To do this, he traces a line from America’s industrial systems to its most ancient, enduring natural wonders.

In American Power, he explores the stark juxtaposition between energy production sites, such as coal plants and refineries, and their surrounding communities, revealing the complex consequences of our reliance on the power grid. By contrast, Hoh Rain Forest immerses viewers in one of the oldest and ecologically rich environments in North America. Here, Epstein’s focus shifts from systems of extraction to spaces of preservation. Lush, intricate, and atmospheric, these photographs evoke the sense of stillness and continuity of a living ecosystem that has existed for centuries. In Old Growth Epstein continues this exploration of nature’s endurance and fragility through portraits of some of the oldest trees left in the United States, while 95% of them have already been destroyed. These monumental forms, weathered, resilient, and quietly commanding, stand as witnesses to centuries of environmental and cultural change.

American Arbor presents these three series in conversation, inviting viewers to consider the tensions and interdependencies between growth and consumption, preservation and progress; this exhibition underscores Epstein’s enduring concern with how landscapes are shaped—physically, politically, and emotionally—while reflecting on what it means to coexist with the natural world.

“Just as form and content are inextricably linked in photography, so is aesthetic judgment inextricably tied to moral clarity in our complex world.” Mitch Epstein

Mitch Epstein (born 1952, Holyoke, Massachusetts) is a photographer who helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s, along with William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. His photographs are in numerous major museum collections, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery in Washington DC; and the Tate Modern in London. Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design (2020) and was awarded the Prix Pictet (2011), Berlin Prize (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002).