Recently, I had the opportunity to catch the Chrysanthemums, and the kiku at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx.  The Botanical Garden’s exhibition of the Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum has four imperial styles at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory Courtyards: 0zukuri (“thousand bloom”), ogiku (“single stem”), kengai (“cascade”), and the shino-tsukuri (“driving rain”).  Below are some of my selects from the exhibition.

The Ozukuri -  or Thousand Bloom  – features hundreds of simultaneous blossoms shaped into a massive dome-shaped array, all grown from a single stem.  It takes 11 months to create each bloom, and each plant is trained to grow five branches from the main stem.  The branches are then trained to form the dome shape that you see below.

The Kengai features hundreds of small-flowered chrysanthemums, trained on a boat shaped framework that is angled to evoke the scene of flowers growing down the face of a cliff.  Each one begins as one potted plant and is trained to grow along a single wire.

Also on display at the Botanical Gardens were sculptures by Tetsunori Kawana.  A master teacher of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana in Tokyo, Kawana incorporates personal style and artistic vision into his designs.  He is known for his modern, large-scale installations that take traditional principles while making use of new materials in techniques.  To create the sculpture below, Kawana salvaged fallen branches, twigs, vines, stumps and roots from the grounds of the Botanical Garden in the days following tropical storms Irene and Lee.  Through gathering and reassembling these items, Kawana seeks to give them a second life as a site-specific work of art that engages all senses.

Museum gift shops and bookstores are one of my favorite places to shop for gifts.  The NYBG is getting prepped for Christmas – what better way to do your shopping when you know the proceeds are used to produce all this beauty.  Visit or shop online.

nybgshop.org

November 10, 2011