Either way, what is certain is that these are not experiments in connoisseurship. The resurrected Dead Tree and Floating Island cannot be sold as museum-quality reproductions or framed as heavily researched scholarship. For better or for worse, Amrhiein and Conley's endeavor is about getting their hands dirty on the dialectic. If art reaches its widest audience through reproductions in books or magazines, this is especially true for '70s performance art and earthworks. So few examples of either actually exist, that their photographic documentation has become more than a simple record - it has become the work itself.
Most curators simply make do with the photos or texts describing the original project or event.
Each heightens our awareness of its fallen position - which, of course, also signifies that it's dead. Although the work employes one of the most ubiquitous landscape elements in art, Dead Tree is not just about nature - not a representation, that is, but the thing itself. More interesting for art historians, perhaps, will be whether the piece should be considered an imitation, a tribute or an authentic reproduction of the '69 work.