Besthoff Sculpture Garden to add new art and host fall festival
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Elmgreen & Dragset created the piece, titled "Maybe (Not)," shown above. It's an 18-foot-tall diving board rising from the shore of the lagoon in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Rendering: Courtesy of the artists and Pace Gallery.
The New Orleans Museum of Art is adding two new permanent pieces in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
Why it matters: The sculpture garden celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
Driving the news: NOMA commissioned Elmgreen & Dragset, of Prada Marfa fame, to create a large sculpture to mark the occasion.
- The duo will install an 18-foot-tall diving board sculpture with two people on top in the lagoon of the garden. It's called "Maybe (Not)."
Between the lines: "The artists often return to the motifs of swimming pools and diving boards as both a critique on the decline of civic spaces where people meet, learn, play and interact and as an acknowledgment of public pools as places where strangers are more exposed and vulnerable to one another," NOMA said in a statement.
In addition, the museum will add a new piece from Sarah Sze's "Fallen Sky" series.
- It will be a 12-foot-wide spherical cavity embedded in the landscape of the garden. The pieces are sheathed in mirrored stainless steel and reflect the surroundings.
By the numbers: Walda Besthoff donated the funds for the installations, NOMA said.
State of play: The 12-acre sculpture garden is in New Orleans City Park. It's free to visit and open seven days a week.
- The garden has nearly 100 works of art already, including ones from Auguste Rodin, Louise Bourgeois and Ida Kohlmeyer.
What's next: On Wednesday, NOMA opens the "Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined," a retrospective by the Kenyan–American artist. It's the first time a NOMA exhibition will include temporary outdoor installations in the garden, according to a statement.
- The garden will have special programming all year, including a free public festival this fall, NOMA says.
