Skip Navigation

Entasis (xylem)

Michael Joo

Contemporary Art

This photographic work is based on scanned imagesof the gigantic trees located on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia. The island is unique for both its ecological diversity and its layered histories as a former and current home to Native populations, white plantation-owning families, and a prominent Gullah-Geechee community (descendants of enslaved West African and West Indian people).

Michael Joo preserves the Lowcountry landscape through a technique that recalls early photographic processes such as the daguerreotype, the silvery surface resulting in an image that comes in and out of view. As rising sea levels threaten the natural environment of the coastline and contribute to the displacement of Gullah-Geechee residents, Joo’s work poignantly captures the fragility and resilience of human life.
MEDIUM Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas
DATES 2016
DIMENSIONS 132 × 96 × 2 in. (335.3 × 243.8 × 5.1 cm)  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 2017.11
CREDIT LINE Gift of Ruth and William S. Ehrlich
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Michael Joo (American, born 1966). Entasis (xylem), 2016. Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas, 132 × 96 × 2 in. (335.3 × 243.8 × 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Ruth and William S. Ehrlich, 2017.11. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of Michael Joo Studio, CUR.2017.11_MichaelJooStudio_photograph.jpg)
IMAGE overall, CUR.2017.11_MichaelJooStudio_photograph.jpg. Image courtesy of Michael Joo Studio, 2017
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
Michael Joo (American, born 1966). <em>Entasis (xylem)</em>, 2016. Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas, 132 × 96 × 2 in. (335.3 × 243.8 × 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Ruth and William S. Ehrlich, 2017.11. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of Michael Joo Studio, CUR.2017.11_MichaelJooStudio_photograph.jpg)