In Los Angeles, a Tree With Stories to Tell

For Mr. Mayer, Mr. Johnson’s tree has provided artistic inspiration.

Several years ago he came to Los Angeles for a residency at the MAK Center, the California outpost of a Vienna museum, with the idea of creating art from the tree. The result was a multimedia installation that was exhibited in Vienna, Berlin and Poznan, Poland. It incorporated seedlings cloned from acorns collected from the tree, and narration of stories connected to the tree’s history, including interviews with the Mexican family.