The Museum of Modern Art has commissioned New York-based artist Teresita Fernández and Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto to create large-scale, site-specific works in the Garden Hall and on the large glass window overlooking The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, which closed in August for the Museum's building project. Fernández transforms the space with a sprawling, organic pattern, while Neto's installation provides viewers with a sensual exploration of the visual, the olfactory, and the tactile. The works will be on view as part of Open Ends, the third and final cycle of MoMA2000, from September 28, 2000 through January 2, 2001.
"Since we know that we will all miss the Sculpture Garden so much, we are going to bring it indoors for a little while," notes Paola Antonelli, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, who organized the installation with Claudia Schmuckli, Curatorial Assistant to the Chief Curator at Large.
Fernández's installation Hothouse (2000) addresses this challenge by creating a complex visual experience that is as concealing as it is revealing of the dialectic between nature and structure, inside and outside. An opaque reflective film is attached to the windows, obstructing the view of the garden. A sprawling vinelike pattern of multiple plastic ovals, white on the front and green on the back, meanders across the glass, with the grid of the framed windows serving as a supporting trellis. The sharply delineated pattern of the white ovals is set off by the diffused reflection of the green backing, a discrepancy that draws the viewer's attention back to what lies hidden and unseen. The installation evokes viewers' memories of the garden, which is initially camouflaged from view.
