Ever wanted to step inside an Impressionist painting? This summer, at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, you can. A two-part exhibition there pairs around 20 paintings by US Impressionists such as Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent with a period garden. The organisers studied dozens of Impressionist works to identify—and recreate—gardening trends of the past. Tens of thousands of plants, including roses, irises and phlox, were specially cultivated for the show, which also includes a composite 19th-century New England cottage façade. Mounting a living exhibition brings its own unique challenges. As Todd Forrest, the garden’s vice president for horticulture, says: “Paintings are not subject to the whims of the weather and do not need to be fed, watered, pruned or deadheaded to look their best.” The show, Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas, runs until 11 September.
This will be the final week to see Isaac Mizrahi: an Unruly History at the Jewish Museum, the first museum exhibition on the fashion designer whose personality is as colourful and recognisable as his work (through 7 August). The show includes 42 complete outfits, theatre costumes by Mizrahi, snapshots and video clips of his film and television appearances. Fans of the documentary Unzipped (1995) on the making of Mizrahi’s 1994 fall runway show will enjoy seeing the cheekily highbrow-lowbrow ensembles from that collection, though a display of the designer’s sketches—his own favourite part of the exhibition, which he helped to organise—might be the best surprise.
At a time when paring down is in vogue, The Keeper, a four-level show at the New Museum (through 25 September), is a fascinating look at people’s compulsion to collect and hold onto art and objects. Ydessa Hendeles’s engaging and overwhelming installation Partners (The Teddy Bear Project) (2002), with antique teddy bears and thousands of photographs with the cuddly stuffed critters—from family snapshots to risqué ladies—anchors the show. Some exhibits are charming but take on a melancholy twist in a museum setting, like over 100 model buildings made in the 1950s and 60s by an Austrian insurance clerk, Peter Fritz, while others explore history and trauma, including a facsimile of a series of drawings from inside Auschwitz.
