Chromogenic print on Kodak Endura paper Signed and numbered on label, verso 61 x 50 inches (Edition of 6) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. At first glance, the large-format color photographs from the series “New Trees” seem to depict everyday woody perennial plants, distinctive only because of their oddly oversized proportions. On closer inspection, however, it becomes apparent that these are not trees at all – they are cell phone towers disguised by telecom companies to blend in with urban and rural surroundings. Appropriating the compositional techniques of Bernd and Hilla Becher, while simultaneously moving away from the Bechers’ rigidly “objective” stance, Voit’s images humorously highlight the absurdity of the awkward camouflage. Voit calls attention to the ubiquity of communication and surveillance technology in the present moment, while also subtly hinting to the shifting role of the natural world in the digital age. Voit’s “New Trees” are neither entirely natural nor entirely social – they exist in a liminal space between the real and the artificial. Robert Voit, born in Erlangen in 1969, lives in Munich. He studied under Gerd Winner at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and under Thomas Ruff at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Voit has exhibited at the Fotomuseum and Haus der Kunst in Munich, at the Nuremberg Kunsthalle, and at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, among other institutions.