Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1455228
SEEDS OF PLANTED IN THE HEART OF DEEP ELLUM, A STEEL, RESIN, AND LED SCULPTED TREE — DESIGNED BY THE AMSTERDAM ARTISTS WHO CREATED THE "VIRGIL WAS HERE" DRONE SHOW AT MIAMI BASEL '21 — IS BASED ON THE TREE OF TÉNÉRÉ IN THE SAHARA DESERT, ONCE THE MOST ISOLATED TREE ON EARTH. SOCIABILITY By Dani Grande. Photography Chop 'Em Down Films. (Continued) S ince coming across Burning Man's Tree of Ténéré sculpture in 2017, Jessica Goldman Srebnick of Goldman Global Arts has been intent on finding the instillation a permanent home. When and where that would happen, however, she didn't know. "I saw it on social media, and I immediately wanted to dig further," she says. "I needed to understand more about what these artists did and how I could be involved with this project." When Joe Beard, president and CEO of Westdale Real Estate Investment and Management, approached her in 2019 about finding a unique sculptural piece to bring to Dallas' Deep Ellum neighborhood, she gave him one option. "I had been waiting for this," Goldman says. Two years later, the second iteration of the Tree of Ténéré has made its Dallas debut, taking root in Westdale's eight-acre development, The Epic. Originally created as a temporary installation for the 2017 Burning Man festival, the gargantuan sculpture was created by Zachary Smith, Marc Slee, and Alexander Green, in collaboration with Amsterdam-based Studio DRIFT artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta — the two artists who created the Virgil Abloh "Virgil was here" drone show for the Louis Vuitton menswear show during Miami Basel last December. While the real Tree of Ténéré in the Sahara Desert was once the most isolated tree on Tree of Ténéré sculpture in Deep Ellum 94