THE CUT

I photographed trees in countless ways and everywhere I went. The tree, unlike us, is an autonomous being in the enterprise of living.

Even more than half a century old, the images that emerge from my archive also tell of bleak spectacles. The cut took place in 1971 in Viale Monte Nero in Milan. Immediately the ruthless process of pruning seemed noteworthy: trees, perfect creatures, evident symbols of what goes beyond the human, beheaded, were brutally considered mechanical devices.