Robert Voit: The Alphabet of New Plants

Book info: Robert Voit: The Alphabet of New Plants (Hardcover, 160 pages) – Hatje Cantz, 2016. Language: English.

The Alphabet of New Plants is a photo album of beautiful flowers―yet something seems to be not quite right, be it the scruffy contours of a stem made of plastic or the structure of the fabric used for the leaves. In fact, these are artificial flowers, like those that are mass produced in countless variations for decorative purposes. Making direct reference to Karl Blossfeldt’s 1928 The Alphabet of Plants, German photographer Robert Voit (born 1969) assembles an archive of "new" flowers and portrays them against a neutral background, playfully exposing man’s urge to imitate nature. Voit’s earlier series, New Trees, also addressed the imitation of nature, featuring large-format photographs of mobile telephone antennae that blend into the landscape camouflaged as trees, cacti or palm trees. Extending these themes, Voit blurs the distinction between the natural and the artificial with the meticulous close-ups of this new volume. Editorial Reviews Review The New Plants have a playful absurdity, showing the viewer at once something that’s beautiful for the natural forms they borrow, but cheapened by the rough, human-made edges. -- Allison Meier ― Hyperallergic