blossoming rose bushes (over a thousand kinds of roses are cultivated here)

Victorian greenhouses and ponds peppered with exotic lotus flowers.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) offers something for everyone; Brush up on the history of Plantae at the Plant Family Collection. (Handy fact: ferns were the first plant to appear on earth). Try and list all 80 plants named in the Bard’s plays over at the Shakespeare Garden. The Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, one of the most visited Japanese-inspired gardens outside of Japan, is a must-see during spring’s cherry blossom season. Don’ miss the viewing pavilion and Shinto shrine.

 Photo by Ruiyan Xu

While flowers come and go with the seasons, art is constant. The BBG has invited Canadian sculptor Shayne Dark to bring his works to the BBG as part of a year-long exhibition that ends July, 2017.

I caught up with Shayne this summer. (Shayne is pictured above with Tanglewood Blue) He told me that his installations – often made from different types of wood from cedar branches to apple gnarls – are influenced by his childhood growing up near the Ottawa river in Ontario where he played a lot with sticks and wood. Logs from a nearby paper and pulp factory  would float downstream and get tangled in bends.

As a child I was fascinated to see that, running across the logs and pushing them away and trying to get them back into the flow of the river… I like using ephemeral materials. I’m ok with these works going back to nature. Art doesn’t have to last for durations of time. It has to be in the moment.

Shayne applies matt theatre paint to his pieces. He discovered the flat paint while working in set design at NYC’s Ed Sullivan Theatre (now David Letterman) twenty-five years ago.

The paint is so flat, Shayne explained, so that the light doesn’t bounce into the audience’s eyes and distract them from the performance.  (Shayne pictured above with Tanglewood Red) He likes working with primary colours.

Primary colours are so immediate as compared to secondary colours. You see something red and it emotes a feeling. I like to bring beauty into my work.

Make a day of your Brooklyn outing and visit the Brooklyn Museum next door. Housed in a pretty Beaux Arts landmark building, the museum is known for its top temporary exhibitions. I popped in and saw “Disguise”,  an eye-catching show by 25 artists from Africa and beyond who used the history of African masks to address twenty-first-century  issues.

A little nature, a little culture – my ideal day.

August, 2016

The post Not Enough Greens in the Big Apple? Hop to Brooklyn’s Botanic Garden appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I experienced Pope-Lock, I checked out Dia Beacon, a fantastic museum 52 miles north of Manhattan in Duchess County. Perched above the Hudson river in a former  Nabisco box printing factory, Dia is as pretty on the outside as it is stunning on the inside.

The sprawling, light-filled museum – where rooms exhibit the works of one great artist at a time – can be peaceful and meditative or a great place for kids to run free. Joseph Beuys, Agnes Martin, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin are just a smattering of the Dia artists exhibited. Here I’m looking rather petite next to Ken and Richard Serra’s Torqued.

This room is dedicated to John Chamberlain.

And this one to Michael Heizer’s “North, East, South, West”.

Get an art twofer and visit Storm King, a 500 acre sculpture park 14 miles south west of Beacon. Go see works by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy and more this autumn. Candy pink sculpture below by artist Lynda Benglis.

Somehow we missed Storm King and ended up in a  cafe dedicated to  Doctor Who fans instead. Who knew?

Back in Manhattan, I sidestepped the gridlock and went underground, taking the N  train from Columbus Circle down to 14th Street. A one-way ticket costs about $3 with trains appearing every five minutes. Goodbye gridlock! From there I  walked to David Zwirner‘s gallery on 19th street  to see the vast and  varied  Wolfgang Tillmans’ show.

The German artist uses state-of-the-art tools showing images previously impossible to capture, like what a wave looks like snapped at 1/4000 of a second. The depth of detail possible in digital photography boggles and fascinates. However, I still prefer Tillmans’ quiet still lifes. Filament is one of my favourites.

Zwirner assistant Cristina Vere Nicoll is co-curating a group show with Tatiana Cheneviere that opens tonight (Oct 2) in Chinatown. If you’re feeling  spry and curious, head on down to 177 Canal Street. Cristina is pictured below with recent RISD graduates and co-founders of MX Gallery, Adrien, Tom Mc Farlin and Shelby Garrison Jackson.

Need an art break? Check out this view from CX’s roof terrace. Tonight.

October, 2015

The post The Pope, Putin and Me appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I promise Vasconcelos, a cross between Jeff Koons and Louise Bourgeois, does not do boring. This is the woman behind ‘The Bride’, the 2005 Venice Biennale 20′ high chandelier made  from over 25,000 tampons. Johnson & Johnson love her.

She’s the third artist (and the youngest and only female) after Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami to be given free reign at Versailles. Vasconcelos wanted to put that  infamous chandelier in Marie-Antoinette’s room but the top chiens at Versailles rejected the idea.

At least she was able to get the pink feathered helicopter approved for landing in one of the state rooms. Her 2012 Versailles show became the most visited show in France in fifty years.

So if you happen to be in London in August (I know, fat chance of that) and sent your hang glider to the dry cleaners, may I suggest you drop into Phillips on Berkeley Square and check out her exuberant show, ‘Material World’.

Vasconcelos typically takes everyday objects or materials with a feminist theme (lace, crochet, ceramics, and of course, tampons) and creates something beautiful and surprising out of them. She takes masculine subjects and feminises them, removes the sting. She blends visual delight with the conceptual.

Quite a pretty urinal, if I do say so.

Vasconcelos’s London-based agent Michael Hue Williams is pictured here with his daughter Lucca in front of the Valkyrie, ‘Material Girl’.

 She’s the real deal. If we don’t mess up she’s going the whole way. Like Jeff Koons. She’s going to be a superstar, says Hue-Williams.

She combines craft quite unashamedly, brazenly in high art. Materials are her paint.” 

Interesting fact: Vasconcelos started out as a karate expert. At one point she ran a karate-groomed, female posse of nightclub bouncers in Lisbon.

Today she has 55 people working flat out, alongside her, in her vast Lisbon studio, getting ready for upcoming shows in Korea, Rio and Rome (latter  is a group show in May with Koons and other art heavy weights).

I want to see her go to America. We have had phenomenal success all over for her, but not yet in America’, says Hue-Williams.

Julia and like-minded readers, I sincerely hope this blog didn’t put you to…

July, 2015 

The post More Art – Short, Sweet and NOT Boring appeared first on Elena Bowes.

We three adventurers met at Paddington Station at the civilised hour of 11am, caught the express train to Castle Cary arriving by 12:30. The views from the train are lovely although we spent most of our time chatting and disturbing our neighbours. Never again will I book the ‘quiet car’ with Deezip in tow.

At Castle Cary we were met by the friendliest of  taxi drivers, David Guy, and whisked off to Hauser & Wirth. Castle Cary is a sleepy, rural station so I recommend booking David in advance (tel 01963 351 015). Swiss global art dealers  Iwan and Manuela Wirth have created quite the cool, arty hangout in the middle of gorgeous Somerset near where they live. Already more than 100,000 people have flocked here since it opened last July.

First things first- we needed the loo. How many loos inspire selfies? That’s how hip this place is!

Then we went outside and enjoyed Dan Graham’s S-Curve, a steel and two-way mirror that did wonders for our figures.

Enough looking at our reflections, the time had come to look beyond ourselves at non-reflective walls. I confess that I have many envies: I wish I could cook, paint my own fingernails, touch-type. The list is long. It just got longer – I want a barn. Correction. I want this barn.

I also wouldn’t mind owning one of Chinese artist Zhang Enli’s ‘Four Seasons’ with its vibrant images of water, leaves and trees. Nature comes inside.

A closeup:

We then strolled through the 1.5 acre Oudolf Field designed by Dutch gardener Piet Oudolf. He has designed both the Highline and the new Whitney Museum’s gardens in NYC amongst other high-profile projects. Perched at the top of Oudolf Field is Chilean artist Smiljan Radic’s white fibreglass pavilion.The Radic Pavilion was first unveiled as the Serpentine Gallery’s 2014 Pavilion.

Here’s a view from my favourite folly.

All this looking at ourselves and beyond can work up an appetite. So to the Roth Bar & Grill we went. It was designed by Bjorn and Oddur Roth, son and grandson of German artist Dieter Roth.

We met up with two creative, bohemian friends who have places nearby and told us what to order – buffalo mozzarella to die for, hamburgers delish, garden salad from the garden, sea bream brilliant and the Bloody Mary’s bloody good. In fact, they said, everything on the menu is good.

After lunch we had a quick espresso At the Chapel, another hip spot in nearby Bruton. Who did we spot there but stunning blonde Burberry model and actress (Endless Love) Gabriella Wilde with her heavily tattooed musician boyfriend Alan Pownall and baby son Sasha Blue. Sorry no pics – we’re too cool for that.

Reality and David the cab driver were calling. Time to head back to London. We almost missed our train when Deezip got distracted in the just-opened,  chic antique shop next to the train station – The Factory.

Oh Somerset, take me back

April, 2015

The post Wirth is Worth a Visit appeared first on Elena Bowes.

or decide ‘Man in Mud’ needs my Girl in Boots (Thomas Schutte, much appreciated), I couldn’t stop snapping.

Kelly Green and Kate – Ellsworth Kelly, you’re a star.

Some things are hard to pose in front of (kind of annoying, but whatever) like starchitect Frank Gehry’s model of the building.  I decided the maquette is cool enough to merit a standalone.

Ditto Eliasson’s reflecting Grotto.

Hey, what am I thinking?! Reflecting?

Gehry’s genius glass creation and civic-minded Bernard Arnault’s passion for art have made Paris even more wonderful – more modern, astounding and breath-taking. This is a must-see for those who get inspired by architecture, design and art.  For the narcissists among us (those with toned right arm biceps), you must go fully charged and flash those pearly whites.

February, 2015

The post Fondation Louis Vuitton- Selfie Heaven appeared first on Elena Bowes.