Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg harness the beauty and power of trees. ~
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"Artists Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain harness the beauty and power of trees through tree-ring sculptures."
Exhibition by Artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg Fuses Art with the Science of Tree-Ring
Dating and Artificial Intelligence.
The artists with their sculpture, Tree of Knowledge. The artists used pyrography to burn over 160 historical questions that underlie our collective pursuit of knowledge into a 7,000-pound, salvaged Eucalyptus tree section. This is one of ten new artworks in the Ancient Wisdom exhibition including works that engage with artificial intelligence and other ideas explored through dendrochronology, the science of tree ring dating.
"A mind-bending installation..."
“Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg, who both understand the power of art to raise questions. This exhibition is a rare combination of exquisite craftsmanship and dedicated scholarship…”
Highlights FROM OPENING WEEK CELEBRATIONS
Festival of the Trees
Feb 2nd, 2025
Save the date for Festival of the Trees with events for the exhibition!
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The Getty Museum’s landmark regional initiative, PST ART: Art and Science Collide, which explores the intersections of art and science, includes an evocative exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center entitled Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology. Artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg draw inspiration from Artificial Intelligence, dendrochronology (the science of tree-ring dating), the complex landscapes of Los Angeles, and ancient Jewish texts to re-examine our human relationship with trees and nature. The exhibition features six tree-ring sculptures that reimagine our past and collective futures in new ways, a video portrait of Los Angeles that draws from open-source ecology datasets, and a participatory system using AI that allows visitors to create their own visual and textual "tributes" to specific LA trees.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN LA & SF
Dec 8, 6PM, Artist Tour & Screening of films Tiffany Shlain & Ken Goldberg co-wrote at The Skirball Cultural Center. Tix info here.
Dec 15, 11:30am, Artist Talk at Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in conversation with friend and artist Amy Trachtenberg.
Feb 2nd, 2025, save the date for Festival of the Trees with events for the exhibition.
"We've been working on this show for nearly three years, and distilling down the big questions of humanity into 160 questions about our collective pursuit of knowledge was such a juicy thing for Ken and I to think about. The questions were then placed, traced, and burned into this salvaged eucalyptus tree using pyrography.
The opening week celebrations were a whirlwind of hard work realized by sharing it with over a thousand people."
The LA Times included Ancient Wisdom exhibition in their list of selects to see out of 70 exhibitions in Getty's PST Art: Art & Science Collide landmark Los Angeles initiative.
Tiffany Shlain, Ken Goldberg and Diane Von Furstenberg, Kristen Bell
It was thrilling at Getty's opening celebration when they featured questions from our Tree of Knowledge sculpture as part of the projection on the walls of the Getty.
Here are some highlight moments from the opening celebrations...
We loved experiencing Diane Von Furstenberg's reaction to the work...DVF is such a trailblazer in every way and also has an exhibition at the Skirball that we highly recommend checking out along with On the National Language. We loved having Kristen Bell, Kimberly and Albert Brooks, and so many friends. Also in photos are our great curators Selma Holo, Vicki Phung Smith, Sheri Bernstein, Jessie Kronberg, and my gallerist who came in from NYC Nancy Hoffman and Ken's gallerist from SF Catharine Clark, Mehdi Douarek. It was also great to show it to Nadya Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot.
Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg
Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology
Part of Getty's Regional Initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide
Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles | October 17th, 2024 to March 2nd, 2025
About the Artists
Partners in life and frequent creative collaborators, Bay Area-based artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg have worked together on art projects and numerous documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated series The Future Starts Here, which includes episodes “Why We Love Robots,” “Robots, Botox, and Google Glass,” and “Tech Shabbats.” They received multiple awards for their documentary short, The Tribe, “an unauthorized, unorthodox... history of the Jewish people and the Barbie doll,” which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and continues to be screened worldwide. Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain have also worked independently for decades as artists—including being shown at the Whitney and at MoMA in New York.
Shlain is an interdisciplinary artist whose works in film, sculpture, and performance explores ideas in feminism, neuroscience, philosophy, technology, and nature.
Goldberg is an artist and professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he questions the boundaries between the digital and natural worlds.
They are co-founders of The Association of Free Association.
Tiffany Shlain is represented by Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York and Ken Goldberg is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
Media Contact: Emma Jacobson-Sive, EJS Media, emma@ejs-media.com, (323) 842-2064
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The artists wish to extend a big thank you and LOVE to the amazing curators Selma Holo and Vicki Phung Smith, the wonderful team at the Skirball, Sheri Bernstein, Michele Urton, Paul Wehby, our team, Jenny Traig, Nicole Lanzotti, Aakansha Tuteja, Ken's UC Berkeley students (Cael Magner, Josh Zhang, Abby O'Neill) who helped with our AI artworks, Evan Shively, Carly Borman, amazing producing support Lauren Schiller, and Stefanie Atkinson Schwartz for taking so many great photos during this exhibition journey.