At Art Basel 2026 Unlimited, Gallery Baton presents Tree, Forest, Mountain by Yuichi Hirako, which comprises 304 hybrid sculptures whose heads resemble fir or pine trees, forming a densely populated collective landscape across a circular platform. Evoking the sensation of a fragment of forest transplanted into the exhibition space, the installation fluidly traverses the boundaries between nature and humanity, the individual and the collective, reality and imagination, offering a uniquely immersive sensory experience.
First unveiled in autumn 2025 at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, "Tree, Forest, Mountain" resonated deeply with audiences through its reinterpretation of the forest as not only a natural environment but also a site where mythology, community, and anonymity coexist. The densely aggregated hybrid figures generate a powerful physical presence, overwhelming the scale of the human body. In doing so, the work suggests a reversal of perspective: nature, long regarded as a passive and consumable object, emerges instead as an active subject that gazes back at humanity. Hirako presents coexistence not as an abstract ethical ideal, but as a spatial reality that already surrounds us, revealing both its latent possibilities and inherent imbalances.
