Roots in the air

Not appearing in my "Religion of Trees" class will be Pamela Rosenkranz's curious "Old Tree," a commission for the High Line. Not because it isn't striking - how could it not be, in orangeish pink? - but because it doesn't seem to me to say anything very interesting. The photographic negative of green, maybe it'll be profound in winter?

The High Line is all about trees growing in mid-air; does anyone need reminding of its artifice? Perhaps we don't think about tree roots much, but that point was made more compellingly in another commission last year, the upended "Roots" of American sweetgums, the Times Square part of Charles Gaines' "American Manifest."