ENJOY YOUR VISIT — Exhibitions

Blue Spears at LongHouse
Dale Chihuly, designer
Photo: © 2000 Jerry Harpur
East Hampton, New York

Past Exhibitions

Exhibitions 2003 – Present

In Search of Paradise:
Great Gardens of the World

In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World stretches visitors’ imaginations as they embark on a sensory journey of contemporary gardens from around the globe. Featured are images of the world’s great gardens from Singapore to Brazil to South Africa, captured by such preeminent garden photographers as Nicola Browne, Mick Hales and Alain Le Toquin, among others.

Support for this exhibition was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and partially supported by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

PHOTO: Chapungu sculpture Chapungu:
Custom and Legend, A Culture in Stone

A remarkable exhibit of contemporary African stone sculpture, Chapungu: Custom and Legend, A Culture in Stone contained ninety sculptures displayed in the beautiful surroundings of the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Garfield Park Conservatory; drawn from the collection of the Chapungu Sculpture Park of Zimbabwe, Africa.

They are the work of 35 sculptors — three generations of artists — most of whom are Shona. The Shona people are the majority ethnic group in Zimbabwe and have lived in southern Africa for more than 800 years. Through the sculptures, the artists speak of their cultural traditions, religious beliefs, social concerns and everyday life. Yet they communicate the experiences and emotions common to all people.

View the Chapungu Exhibit online.

PHOTO: Dan Kiley Dan Kiley: Master Landscape Architect

Renowned for fusing classic garden elements with a vital, modern sensibility, Dan Kiley ranks as one of the most important American landscape architects of the twentieth century. In a remarkable 60-year career, he produced public and private gardens, plazas, memorials and urban landscapes that define modern landscape architecture around the world.

Mentored by the environments of his youth — Boston's urban alleyways and New Hampshire's pristine forests — Mr. Kiley rejected Beaux-Arts formulas and the Romantic traditions of Frederick Law Olmsted. Working alongside modernist architects such as Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, and Edward Larrabee Barnes, he developed something new: a style of landscape architecture characterized by strong, geometric forms and fluid spaces.

From the Rockefeller Institute and the Oakland Museum to the Art Institute of Chicago and our own Garden, Mr. Kiley's designs reflect his unmatched vision for shaping nature into intense experiences of order, beauty and purity of line. The Garden's exhibit is composed of enormous photomurals that celebrate Mr. Kiley's most notable landscapes as we pay tribute to one of our greatest friends.

sLowlife

Plants are presented as complex, living beings in this multi-media exhibition developed as a collaboration among the Chicago Botanic Garden, United States Botanic Garden and Dr. Roger Hangarter, Indiana University. Time-lapse movies show plants as they respond to their environment in movements that are too slow for the human eye to register. In addition to movies, the gallery-style presentation includes photographs and original sound compositions based on plant movement.

Visit http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/usbg/ to learn more about this remarkable traveling exhibition.