“Moore in America? at the New York Botanical Garden |
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| Wednesday, 28 May 2008 05:07 |
 Bronx, NY - As summer approaches and the euro and pound remain mightier than the dollar, New York City seems to have been recolonized by Europeans over the last few weeks. The city is no stranger to these kinds of tourists, having hosted its share over the last few decades. But the New York Botanical Garden's “Moore in America” exhibition, which opened May 24th with 18 of Henry Moore’s big, beloved bronzes (and two more in fiberglass), is the largest outdoor collection of his work in a single location ever presented in New York, or anywhere else in the country. “It opens up the gardens to new audiences who might not be all that into plants or into gardening but who are into human creativity,” said Todd Forrest, the garden’s vice president for horticulture, riding one recent sunny morning on the back of a golf cart as Moores were being trucked into place all across the garden’s 250 acres, and by bringing in art, we show them that the garden — that these kinds of gardens — are in themselves works of art,” he continued. “They’ve been designed and constructed and conserved in much the same spirit.” In choosing Moore, one of the most revered and familiar sculptors of the 20th century, the garden may be taking few risks. But Mr. Forrest and officials at the Henry Moore Foundation, in rural Hertfordshire north of London, said that the landscape, with its combination of highly choreographed planting, natural schist formations and native forest, was such an ideal fit for the work that it seemed the logical choice for the garden’s first ambitious exhibition. Moore, who died in 1986, most likely would have approved. “Sculpture is an art of the open air,” he once said. “And for me its best setting and complement is nature. I would rather have a piece of my sculpture put in a landscape, almost any landscape, than in, or on, the most beautiful building I know.” The Botanical Garden is not just any landscape, of course, and so as early as two years before the exhibition was to open, Anita Feldman, the curator of the Moore Foundation, began visiting the north Bronx and wandering the garden’s hills and fields to decide which pieces from the foundation’s collection would work best, and to figure out where those works would sing.  At the time, many of the pieces she had in mind were scheduled to be shipped to a slightly larger show of Moore’s work that opened last year at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in southwest London — appropriately, perhaps, given that those historic gardens were the inspiration for the one that was founded in the Bronx in 1891. (After the New York show closes on Nov. 2, the pieces will head to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, completing a kind of greatest-hits international garden tour.)Ms. Feldman also had visions of placing a large seedpod-shaped piece called “Large Totem Head” (1968) almost in the embrace of one of the oldest trees in the Botanical Garden, a towering black oak near Daffodil Hill, so that the sculpture could play off the totemic power of the tree. But the weight of the piece might have damaged the oak’s roots, so the sculpture was recently lowered into place well in front of the tree. The heavy lifting and slow, methodical lowering of the pieces was handled by Frank Mariano, whose family’s company specializes in moving sculpture and has hoisted pieces by Rodin, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein and Roxy Paine, and many, many Moores, over the last few decades. Resting on a bench between hoistings, Mr. Mariano, who has become a well-versed amateur sculpture critic in his job, said he had a particular affection for Moores and had rarely seen them in such a symbiotic relationship with a setting. “Kind of knocks you over,” he said. Ms. Feldman said she was very happy the pieces had found such a good spot in the Bronx for the next five months, before many of them migrate south to Atlanta for the winter. “But I must say, they’ve been on the road a long time,” she added, sounding like a worried mother. “And after that, they really do need to come back home to England.” “Moore in America” opens on May 24 and continues through Nov. 2 at the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway and Fordham Road, the Bronx; (718) 817-8700 Visit : www.nybg.org. By . . Randy Kennedy Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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