Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Exhibitions, Exhibitions, Kiku, People, Video on October 23 2008, by Plant Talk
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Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden. |
Kiku Bamboo Sculpture Installation from The New York Botanical Garden on Vimeo.
Posted in Exhibitions, Kiku on October 17 2008, by Plant Talk
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Autumn is here and Kiku returns to The New York Botanical Garden from October 18 through November 16. Time to perform your “civic duty” and vote…for your favorite kiku style.
Is it the majestic dome-shaped array of the ozukuri (“thousand bloom”)? Could it be the colorful kengai (“cascade”) that resemble “waterfalls” of wild chrysanthemums? How about the towering ogiku (“single stem”) arranged in symbolic rows representing the colors of the horse bridles of Japan’s Imperial family? Maybe it’s this year’s new display style, shino-tsukuri (“driving rain”)?
Click the images on the poll to learn more about each variety and then choose your favorite. (P.S. You can vote as many times as you want. We won’t tell anyone!) Spread the word and get others to vote, too. Then, come visit Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum and see the impressive cultural exhibition and flower show first-hand.
The polling widget will live on the upper right corner of the blog until Election Week (the first week of November), when we will announce the results.
Posted in Exhibitions, Kiku, People on October 8 2008, by Plant Talk
Sally Armstrong Leone is Editorial Director at The New York Botanical Garden.
The Courtyards of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory are abuzz with staff, designers, and volunteers creating and installing the upcoming exhibition Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum. Four elaborate growing styles of chrysanthemums (kiku) make up the focal point of the show. These exquisite displays are housed in Japanese garden pavilions known as uwaya, intricate structures of bamboo and cedar delicately edged with ceremonial drapery that provide both shelter and a formal stage for kiku. The uwaya featured in the Garden’s exhibition were crafted by Tom Owens, President of High Country Timberframe & Gallery Woodworking in Boone, North Carolina, who recently talked about the design and construction for the show.
How are the structures that you made for the Botanical Garden different from those that are made in Japan?
In Japan uwaya are newly built each year for the annual Chrysanthemum Exhibition. The NYBG challenge was to provide traditional structures that could potentially be re-used for many years. That is, the design and construction techniques had to utilize traditional Japanese joinery, proportion, details, and materials while also facilitating the safe and orderly disassembly and storage of the pavilion components during the winter, spring, and summer months.
What was the production process like?
More than 4,000 man hours were spent from inception to raising to disassembly. Our crew of eight carpenters and I traveled to a bamboo farm in Charlotte, N.C., to harvest thousands of fresh bamboo poles by hand. Once cut, we brought them back to our shop and carefully cleaned and polished the poles and cut them to the required length before assembly into the uwaya. All of the timber layout, joinery work, and finishing took place in our shop in Boone. Upon completion, we pre-assembled the more intricate joinery to ensure proper fit and then, once final adjustments were made, sent the hundreds of components wrapped in paper via tractor trailer to NYBG for installation.
Can you explain how the uwaya used for the kengai* style is different from the uwaya used for the other styles? What is the significance?
The kengai uwaya differs significantly by relying primarily on a bamboo lattice to support its multi-tiered roof system. The materials are also much more varied and natural in their shapes. The post-and-beam elements of all uwaya are exposed, contributing their beauty, but the kengai is particularly spectacular as its materials are so rich and textured, providing striking contrasts with the cascading flowers. It is a building with a lot of soul!
*The kengai (cascade) style features hundreds of small-flowered chrysanthemums trained on a framework that is angled to evoke flowers growing down the face of a cliff.
Posted in Exhibitions, Kiku on October 2 2008, by Plant Talk
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Karen Daubmann is Director of Exhibitions and Seasonal Displays. |
Last year, as one of my first projects as an employee of the Garden, I had the pleasure of working with artist Tetsunori Kawana as he and a crew of staff and volunteers (see photo below) assembled a bamboo sculpture for Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum. The exhibition focuses on luscious displays of chrysanthemums but uses bamboo, maples, and other Japanese plants to showcase how important plants are to the Japanese, especially in autumn.
The towering sculpture provided a magnificent accent to last year’s Kiku display in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory Courtyards. If you saw the sculpture, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it was very cool and like nothing you’d seen before. Though it was untitled, I’d compare it to a bamboo volcano, a wide base narrowing at the top but giving way to an explosion of bamboo strands that danced through the air, rugged and powerful but graceful at the same time.
This year, Kawana-san is back with a bigger and even cooler project. He has designed what he calls a “cloud forest,” which visitors can walk through to experience it from within, immersing themselves in his work.
On Monday, 350 pieces of 30-foot timber bamboo (Phyllostachys bambusoides) arrived here from Georgia. As the truck was unloaded, the excitement for the project began to build. The bamboo will be used in many ways—cut into sections to form triangles of support, split into segments and woven to create “clouds,” and used full length to create the “forest.”
Unless you’re a volunteer working on this project, you’ll have to wait until the show opens for the sculpture’s unveiling. However, if you’re willing to spend some time sawing, splitting, and wiring bamboo together and you are available October 2–11, please contact the volunteer office at volunteer@nybg.org or 718-817-8564.
Believe me, it is a treat to work alongside Tetsunori Kawana.
Posted in Exhibitions, Exhibitions, Moore in America, NYBG in the News, Video on September 16 2008, by Plant Talk
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Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media. |
In the few months since its opening, Moore in America, the exhibition of monumental sculpture on display at The New York Botanical Garden, has generated quite a bit of positive media reaction. One of the highlights was Channel Thirteen’s SundayArts feature, which included the Moore exhibition as the lead story in its news segment.
Host Christina Ha visited the Botanical Garden and shared with viewers some of the 20 artworks by Henry Moore that are placed throughout the Garden’s 250 acres, including Reclining Mother and Child in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. The SundayArts program airs weekly on Thirteen/WNET-TV, the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut metro area. The program showcases local arts news about gallery and museum exhibits and world-class performances. Its Web site is rich with artist profiles, blogs, calendar listings, multi-media content, and more.
In addition to covering Moore in America, PBS has featured other stories about the Botanical Garden as well.
New York Voices, the weekly half-hour newsmagazine program and Emmy-winning series that presents in-depth stories unique to the lives of New Yorkers, documented the Garden’s Plant Research Laboratory and last spring’s popular exhibition Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure, hosted by Rafael Pi Roman.
One of my favorite PBS programs in recent memory was “A Walk Through the Bronx,” in which award-winning documentary-maker David Hartman and historian Barry Lewis explored the history of our fine borough, including a fascinating look at the early history of The New York Botanical Garden.
David Hartman later returned to the Garden for a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into making NYBG’s crowd-favorite Holiday Train Show, filming a documentary about Paul Busse and his team at Applied Imagination.
As the Botanical Garden continues to attract the attention of an ever-growing landscape of traditional and new media, public television continues to be a source of thought-provoking and engaging content not easily found elsewhere, sharing with its millions of viewers topics about education, science, culture and the arts, and much, much more.
Posted in Exhibitions, Moore in America, Programs and Events on July 25 2008, by Kate
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Kate Murphy, a junior at Fordham University, is an intern working in the Communications Department this summer. |
If the 20 monumental pieces in the largest outdoor exhibition of Henry Moore’s sculpture ever seen in a single venue in the United States isn’t enough for you, there is more Moore to be seen at NYBG. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through November 2, you can catch The Art of Henry Moore, a documentary film focusing on his work.
As anyone living in or visiting New York City in the past few weeks-scratch that, during the summertime in general-will understand, the heat can get pretty intense. So I decided to escape to the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall and check out The Art of Henry Moore for some air-conditioned relief.
Narrated by Moore himself, the film features footage from around the world, showcasing a variety of backdrops for his magnificent sculpture, many of which can be seen in real life at NYBG during the Moore in America exhibit.
The Art of Henry Moore opens with Moore telling about his life and the defining moments that led him to become one of the most widely known and highly regarded sculptors of all time. He drew inspiration from a range of objects: from a bleak rock in the landscape of Adel woods, outside of Leeds, to ancient Mexican art found in the British Museum. He explains the themes in his works such as the mother and child and the reclining figure and considers the benefits of working in various media using different techniques.
Before seeing the movie, I didn’t know much about Moore’s creative thought process. I gained an appreciation for how artists, and Moore in particular, use particular methods for generating ideas. Moore talks of walking in nature every day and how a sculpture begins—by finding an object such as a bone or a pebble and drawing and studying it. Moore took these “found objects” and translated the beauty of imperfection into his abstract sculpture.
I would definitely recommend seeing The Art of Henry Moore when you visit the Garden for the Moore exhibition. It puts all of the work in perspective and puts a human face on the man behind the extraordinary sculpture.
Posted in Exhibitions, Moore in America on July 10 2008, by Plant Talk
Educator Anabel Holland is giving guided tours of Moore in America at The New York Botanical Garden
This summer’s Henry Moore exhibition at the Garden has me coming back again and again. The large sculptures hulk quietly throughout the grounds, not imposing themselves upon you but waiting to be discovered. Some hide behind trees or in enclosed gardens only to be revealed when you fully take in both the sculpture itself and the setting around it. For me the most breathtaking is Large Reclining Figure, 1984. As you follow the path up toward the Rose Garden, it slowly takes shape. The brilliant white of the fiberglass contrasting against the vivid green grass is a sight to be seen.
The most amazing aspect of Moore in America is its ability to transform. While walking around with tour groups, my view of each sculpture is constantly changing. In one group everyone sees elephant bones in many pieces, while in another the focus is on the texture and the way it affects the light that reflects off the surface. 
Not only do the subtle changes in landscape transform the pieces, as Moore would have wanted, but seeing them through someone else’s view is unbelievably eye opening. This exhibition is definitely a must see for the summer!
Art in Nature: Walking Tours of Moore in America take place on weekends for the duration of the exhibition.
Posted in Darwin's Garden, Exhibitions, People on July 3 2008, by Plant Talk
Jane Dorfman is Reference Librarian/Exhibitions Coordinator in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
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| © English Heritage Photo Library |
I just returned from a short visit to the United Kingdom where a colleague from the Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library arranged for a private tour of Down House, the home of Charles Darwin. He lived there with his family for the last 40 years of his life, experimenting with plants.
The tour of the house and garden was led by author and conservationist Randal Keynes, a great, great grandson of Charles Darwin. Erudite and charming, Mr. Keynes offered insights and details about the life and work of his extraordinary relative that enlivened and inspired the experience.
Come and be inspired, as well, by the work of Charles Darwin in the Mertz Library’s Rondina Gallery exhibit, Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure, which continues until July 20.
Posted in Exhibitions, Moore in America, Programs and Events on June 5 2008, by Plant Talk
Be a part of Moore in America. Henry Moore wanted his audience to interact with his sculpture, to get up close and experience the works in a variety of light, weather, and seasons. In partnership with the International Center of Photography, The New York Botanical Garden is pleased to host a photography contest in celebration of our landmark exhibition Moore in America: Monumental Sculpture at The New York Botanical Garden.
Help us to capture the magic of Moore’s massive works against the splendid backdrop of the Garden. Submit your photographs of Moore in America and enter our contest for a chance to win a prize. From June 4 to September 30, participants may enter one photo for each of the four separate jury selections (July 1, August 1, September 1, and October 1). First-, second-, and third-place prizes will be awarded each month. At the end of the contest, one of the four first-place winners will be awarded the grand prize—the opportunity for their photograph to appear in an advertisement.
Posted in Exhibitions, Moore in America, Programs and Events on May 29 2008, by Plant Talk
Henry Moore is standing tall across the Garden and the Darwin exhibit is still going strong. Both of these wonderful exhibits have a slew of complementary programs. Want to take a guided tour highlighting the Moore sculpture, see the newly budding roses, go on a bird walk, learn the science of Charles Darwin, or find something to keep the kids occupied? This Friday through Sunday is jam packed with all of that and more.
Check out the full list after the jump.