Boston Flora

Tag: sculpture

  • Saturday, June 1 through Sunday, October 6 – The Lost Bird Project

    Todd McGrain’s “The Lost Bird Project” recognizes the tragedy of environmental destruction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction, including the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Heath Hen. The Berkshire Botanical Garden exhibition includes large-scale outdoor sculptures and an indoor gallery show (beginning August 10) featuring smaller-scale versions of the same sculptures, supplemented with original drawings and other related artwork. “These bronze sculptures are subtle, beautiful and hopeful reminders,” McGrain says. “The human scale of each outdoor sculpture elicits a physical sympathy. The smooth surface, like a stone polished from touch, conjures the effect of memory and time. I model these gestural forms to contain a taut equilibrium, a balanced pressure from outside and from inside — like a breath held in. As a group, they are melancholy yet affirming. They compel us to recognize the finality of our loss, they ask us not to forget them, and they remind us of our duty to prevent further extinction.”

    Opening reception is Saturday, Aug. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2024

  • Saturday, April 23, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Opening Day: Uprooted, Land Art by W. Gary Smith

    This nature-inspired exhibition at The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill imagined by author, artist, and landscape architect W. Gary Smith features stunning sculptures among the landscape of Tower Hill. Made from natural materials collected at the Garden, this exhibit celebrates the connections between people and nature, combining art and horticulture to explore ecological design and artistic abstraction. Join us throughout the year for events, tours, drop-in activities, and more as we explore different ways to connect with the land through art. The show runs through November 1, 2022.

    Gary Smith’s mission is to connect people with nature in innovative and unconventional ways. An award-winning landscape architect, his garden design work has focused almost entirely on public botanical gardens including the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, Longwood Gardens, and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. Along with Ryan Associates of Waltham, MA, he designed The Ramble here at Tower Hill Botanic Garden. In addition to his award-winning work in landscape architecture, Gary is also well known as an environmental artist. His temporary installations, a form of Land Art, have been installed in many public gardens including the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden, Filoli Historic House and Garden, Garvan Woodland Garden, Ganna Walska Lotusland – and more locally, Garden in the Woods. 

    Join us for the opening of Uprooted on Saturday, April 23, and see Tower Hill’s grounds transformed by unique, magical nature-inspired sculptures. Enjoy nature inspired sculptures, drop-in programs, the family exploration station, and guided tours. For more information about the exhibit, visit https://nebg.org This exhibition was postponed during the height of the pandemic, so Tower Hill is thrilled it can be safely rescheduled.

  • Through June 1, 2022 – Jeffrey Gibson: Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House

    The Trustees announce a large scale exhibit at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum beginning this June and running through June 1, 2022. A monumental sculpture by renowned artist Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw-Cherokee), the title, Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House, comes from a song Gibson associates with nightclubs that have provided haven and community especially for LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC.

    The ziggurat form references the earthen architecture of the ancient Mississippian city of Cahokia, which flourished in the seventh through fourteenth centuries, well before European contact. The installation will be adorned with phrases advocating for Indigenous space and culture and wheat-pasted posters co-created by Gibson and artists Eric-Paul Riege (Diné), Luzene Hill (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), and Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota).

    Gibson has invited Riege and Hill to stage performances on and around the installation. Additionally, he invited Claxton to adapt one of her photographs, titled Lasso, to a monumental scale as a billboard which will be on view in the Sculpture Park by June 1. The installation opens with Riege’s performance on Friday June 4th from 12-4pm. Click here to learn more.

    Learn more about the past programs and performances for Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House while it was on view at Socrates Sculpture Park.

    About the Artist

    Jeffrey Gibson’s vibrantly patterned work addresses his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage as well as his queer identity, and the aesthetics and biases associated with those identity markers. He works across painting, sculpture, video, performance, and installation art. He draws on Indigenous process and materials, and queer histories that use camp aesthetics as a critical strategy to deny any romanticizing of Indigenous cultures. By exaggerating these aesthetics Gibson forges conversations that transcend binary thinking. Merging styles and historical references, Gibson states, “I have continued to think about my practice as encompassing the past and present while considering the future.”

    Gibson (b. 1972) earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London. His work has been featured in recent solo exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum and the New Museum, New York, and was included in the 2019 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, as well as more recently at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. A 2019 MacArthur Fellowship recipient, Gibson is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

    This project was originally commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City. VIA Art Fund is the commissioning sponsor. For more information and hours, visit www.thetrustees.org

  • Thursday, September 21, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Art & Spirit in the Garden: Incorporating Sculpture into your Outdoor Landscape

    Gather inspirations from Karin Stanley’s love of poetry art and sculpture and from her travels and musings in Ancient Ireland, Scotland and other countries in creating meditative spaces, areas for serenity, healing, reflection, dynamic impact, drama, humor and allegory. Karin Stanley is an artist/sculptor and garden designer and a graduate of the Radcliffe landscape design and history program. On Thursday, September 21 from 7 – 8:30 she shares some of her process and practical ideas and advice on how to use sculpture and artistic enhancements that will help inspire a deeper vision and impact for your own garden, community or public project. The class is sponsored by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and is $12 for Mass Hort members, $20 for nonmembers. You may register online at www.masshort.org.  Image copyright KMStanley.

  • Thursday, March 9, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – The Shape of Rivers: Perspectives from Art and Science

    Join Biennial artist Fritz Horstman and MIT geophysicist Daniel Rothman for a multidisciplinary conversation on water flow through natural landscapes at the deCordova Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln, on Thursday, March 9 at 6:30 pm. Free, but registration is requested at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-shape-of-rivers-perspectives-from-art-and-science-tickets-30121080964?aff=es2

    DeCordova New England Biennial 2016 artist Fritz Horstman explores the intersection of human constructions and ecological systems. His large commissioned sculpture, Formwork for a Spiral Movement based on the form of a river’s eddy is on view in the Sculpture Park as part of the Biennial, while over 20 wooden models are on view in the galleries.

    Daniel H. Rothman is a Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT. His work has contributed widely to the understanding of the organization of the natural environment, resulting in fundamental advances in subjects ranging from seismology and fluid flow to biogeochemistry and geobiology. He has also made significant contributions to research in statistical physics. Much of his recent interests focus on the dynamics of Earth’s carbon cycle, the co-evolution of life and the environment, and the physical foundation of natural geometric forms. Rothman is co-founder and co-director of MIT’s Lorenz Center, a privately funded interdisciplinary research center devoted to learning how climate works. The Center fosters creative approaches to increasing fundamental understanding.

  • Through Monday, October 10 – Natural Threads

    Heritage Museums & Gardens, 67 Grove Street in Sandwich, is hosting ten artists this year for Natural Threads, this year’s seasonal outdoor art installation in the gardens. Their imaginative works interpret the theme of connected natural and synthetic fibers by bending, shaping, and linking natural elements of Heritage Museums & Gardens’ varied terrain.

    The artists in this outdoor art installation use rope, cord, textiles, and branches among other materials to get us to pay close attention to aspects of Heritage’s peaceful environment. Heritage’s seasonal outdoor art installations inspire visitors to create and to view their familiar gardens in new ways.

    Each artist competed and was selected by a jury panel for acceptance into the show. The artists featured this year are from Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, California, Mississippi, Utah and Pennsylvania. To create the art installations these experienced artists used knots, cables, ropes, mirrors, and yarn to express the passage of light, chaos and order, tree bark skins, and identity. Landscape configurations, webs, and woven lines figure into some of the pieces. One artist’s piece was inspired by rainwater and an ancient ceremonial drinking vessel. The sponsor of this exhibition is the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.  Free with admission.  For hours of operation visit www.heritagemuseumsandgardens.org.

  • Wednesday, April 13, 5:00 pm – 46th Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Public Garden

    Wednesday, April 13, 5:00 pm – 46th Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Public Garden

    You are cordially invited to the 46th Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Public Garden on Wednesday, April 13 at 5 pm at First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough Street.  A presentation will be made by David Dearinger, Curator of Paintings & Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum, entitled Museums Without Walls: The Sculpture Collection of the Boston Common, Public Garden, and Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  Reception will follow.  Kindly respond by April 6 by calling 617-723-8144, or emailing info@friendsofthepublicgarden.org.  To view the 2015 Annual Meeting minutes, bylaws, and nominating slate visit www.friendsofthepublicgarden.org.

  • Sunday, August 18, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Guided Tour of Confluence Exhibit at The Mount

    This season, Edith Wharton’s beautiful Berkshire home, The Mount, in partnership with SculptureNow, is pleased to present Confluence, an exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculptures featuring 24 nationally acclaimed artists, including George Rickey (his work pictured below,) Jonathan Prince, Tim Prentice, and Richard Erdman. Join a docent for a free two-hour guided tour of this remarkable show and hear the stories behind the art and artists.  The tour will start at The Stable at 3 pm. Wear comfortable shoes! Free.  For more information visit www.edithwharton.org, or call 413-551-5100.  The Mount is located at 2 Plunkett Street in Lenox. For additional information about SculptureNow, please visit www.sculpturenow.org.

    http://sculpturenow.org/wp-content/gallery/2013-sculpture-show-at-the-mount/4-ls-excentric-ii-by-george-rickey-jpg_0.jpg

  • Wednesday, October 10, 6:00 pm – Friends of the Public Garden Members Reception

    The Friends of the Public Garden invites you to a Members Reception Wednesday, October 10, at 6 pm, at the Union Club, 8 Park Street in Boston.  This is a time to socialize and to hear David Dearinger, member of the Friends Sculpture Committee, talk about the unlikely transience of large public sculptures in Boston, including some of the ones that do (or did) grace Boston’s Public Garden and Commonwealth Avenue Mall. David is the Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings & Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum, and a specialist in nineteenth-century American sculpture.  The event is free but please rsvp as space is limited.  Email no later than Friday, October 5 at info@friendsofthepublicgarden.org.  Call 617-723-8144 for information.  Your membership can be renewed at this event.  Motor Mart Garage is the reception sponsor – thank you.

  • Friday, August 12, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Art in the Garden “Fear and Wonder” Reception

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, will feature Sean James Harrington’s sculpture series “Fear and Wonder” through September 17, and you will have the opportunity to meet the artist at a reception on Friday, August 12, from 6 – 7:30.  The exhibit is inspired by nature and myth.  For more information, visit www.towerhillbg.org.