Crowd at the New York Botanical Garden

On Sunday I traveled to the Bronx to see Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures set among the plants of the New York Botanical Garden. While on the train I read in the Times about Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs of Richard Serra’s sculpture Joe, which is situated in the new Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis designed by Japanese architect Tandao Ando. Like much of Sugimoto’s recent work, the photographs are minimal black and white images deliberately made out of focus. Originally, the photographs were to be a collaboration with Serra, but he, evidently, was uncomfortable with the idea, and left Sugimoto to his own devices.

Richard Serra’s sculpture Joe as photographed by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Reducing Serra’s tactile reddish steel sculpture into fuzzy monochrome light and shadow does not compute with my reading of Serra’s work. Ando’s building was designed to contain the spiraling form of Serra’s sculpture–a collaboration between the artist and architect–but nowhere in Sugimoto’s pictures is there any evidence of the surrounding architecture. One could argue that Sugimoto uses Serra entirely to create his own separate reality, linked to the original source, but not intended as a document. Well okay, if you think that transforming Serra’s tough, tightly wound masterpiece into a series of ephemeral two dimensional compositions is a worthwhile project.

Chihuly glass sculpture reflected in water

Thinking of Richard Serra massive steel objects it’s hard to transition to Dale Chihuly’s multi-colored blown glass. Chihuly is the ultimate eye candy, easy to like, and easy to dismiss. As one visitor to the Botantical Garden exclaimed in New Yorkese, it’s gawgeous. You can’t really disagree with that. The installation is a spectacular crowd pleaser. But there are moments of more sublime pleasure like the column of blue and green writhing glass tubes set among palm trees, or the silvery glass spikes hanging amidst grey/green cactuses. Here are some visual impressions of the show.