The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx celebrated in New York Botanical Garden
14/09/2019.
Brazilian Modern [NYC] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
During this summer, New York Botanical Garde opened its largest ever show celebrating the life and work of Brazilian landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx. ‘Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx’, which remains on view until September 29th, 2019, honors one of the most significant brazilian artists of the 20th century and his contributions to plant discovery, conservation, and garden design.
NYBG’s largest botanicalexhibition ever, it is also the first to combine a horticultural tribute to Burle Marx’s design work, featuring lush gardens, witha curated galleryof his vibrant paintings, drawings, and textiles, revealingdeep connections between his artistic practice and his commitment to environmental conservation.
NYBG’s largest botanicalexhibition ever, it is also the first to combine a horticultural tribute to Burle Marx’s design work, featuring lush gardens, witha curated galleryof his vibrant paintings, drawings, and textiles, revealingdeep connections between his artistic practice and his commitment to environmental conservation.
An aerial view of the Modernist Garden and the Conservatory. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden.
Detail of the Modernist Garden and the Conservatory. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden,
An aerial view of the Modernist Garden and the Conservatory. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden,
The patterned path of the Modernist Garden, influenced by Roberto Burle Marx's designs. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden.
An aerial view of the Modernist Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, an homage to Roberto Burle Marx. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
A water feature in the Explorer's Garden. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
The patterned path of the Modernist Garden, influenced by Roberto Burle Marx's designs. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
Roberto Burle Marx during a botanical expedition in Ecuador, 1974. Photograph by Luiz Knud Correia de Araújo. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
Marx’s ouevre ranges from landscape architecture to painting, sculpture to theatre design, and tapestries to jewellery. Pictured: design for mineral roof garden, Banco Safra headquarters, São Paulo, 1983.
Detail of the Modernist Garden and the Conservatory. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden.
Roberto Burle Marx paints in his home in the 1980s. Photograph by Ayrton Camargo/Tyba. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
Roberto Burle Marx painting in the loggia of his home, 1980s. Photograph by Claus Meyer / Tyba. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
A visitor views Roberto Burle Marx's vibrant paintings, drawings, and textiles. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
Visitors learn about the artist's estate where he lived, worked, and entertained friends and colleagues. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden.
Guest Designer Raymond Jungles, and Guest Curator Edward J. Sullivan, in front of a Burle Marx painting. Image courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden
Engaging public programming showcases the sights and sounds of Braziland itslively contributions to music and dance evoking Rio de Janeiro, the “Cidade Maravilhosa” (“Wonderful City”) that Roberto Burle Marx called homeand inspired his life and work.
Contemporary landscape architect Raymond Jungles, who was a protégé of Burle Marx, has designed a Modernist Garden on a portion of NYBG’s Conservatory Lawn, an Explorer’s Garden in a Seasonal Exhibition Galleryof the Conservatory, and a Water Garden in the Conservatory’s Hardy Courtyard.
Contemporary landscape architect Raymond Jungles, who was a protégé of Burle Marx, has designed a Modernist Garden on a portion of NYBG’s Conservatory Lawn, an Explorer’s Garden in a Seasonal Exhibition Galleryof the Conservatory, and a Water Garden in the Conservatory’s Hardy Courtyard.
Roberto Burle Marx liked to tell the story of his arrival in Berlin in the late 1920s as a young man, in the German capital to steep himself in European culture. When he checked out the city’s botanical garden, the scales dropped from his eyes.
Surprisingly for him, the botanic conservatories contained the living treasures of Amazonia, plants he had never seen in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. The gardens of the Brazilian bourgeoisie were full of roses, geraniums, clipped hedges and other floral markers of Western “civilization.”
Thus began Burle Marx’s lifelong passion for garden design with Brazilian plants, for discovering and conserving new native species, and for the prescient cause of fighting the agricultural destruction of the tropical habitats of his homeland and the lungs of the world.
Surprisingly for him, the botanic conservatories contained the living treasures of Amazonia, plants he had never seen in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. The gardens of the Brazilian bourgeoisie were full of roses, geraniums, clipped hedges and other floral markers of Western “civilization.”
Thus began Burle Marx’s lifelong passion for garden design with Brazilian plants, for discovering and conserving new native species, and for the prescient cause of fighting the agricultural destruction of the tropical habitats of his homeland and the lungs of the world.
In theModernist Garden, strikingly patterned paths lead through extensive curvilinearplanting beds to an open plaza with a large pool framed by awall carved in relief, its creation influenced by a Burle Marx installation in the Banco Safraheadquartersin SãoPaulo.
Other inspirations include Burle Marx’s work in private landscapes, such as the garden of the residence of Edmundo Cavanellas in Petrópolis; constructed landscapes, such as the roof garden at the Ministry of Education and Public Health and Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; and large parks, such as the Parque del Este in Caracas, Venezuela.
The plant palette includesbromeliads, elephant’s-ears, colorful annuals, and other plants characteristic of Burle Marx’s pioneering work. Mature palm specimens, primarily Brazilian and Caribbeannatives,dotted throughoutthe site provide a sense of scale and enhance the tropical nature of thegarden.
The Explorer’s Garden highlights many of the tropical rainforest plants, including those that were among Burle Marx’s favorites and were often incorporated into the landscapes he designed. The more intimate indoor installation is inspired by Burle Marx’s efforts to introduce Brazilians to their country’s remarkable biodiversity through his landscape designs. The bold forms of philodendrons, elephant’s-ears, bromeliads, and other plants favored by Burle Marx areon display.
The Water Garden explores Burle Marx’s plantsmanship, celebrating his use of plants from a variety of tropical regions in his designs in Brazil and beyond. Palms create scale, bromeliads provide texture, and a wall of staghorn ferns lends a sense of botanical whimsy. A pool contains hardy water lilies from NYBG’s collections, augmented with tropical water lilies and other aquatic plants favoredby Burle Marx, including a hybrid of the enormous, much-celebratedVictoria amazonica, which produces leaves that can grow to three meter in diameter.
A full-colorillustrated catalogue, published in association with the exhibition, features essays by Dr. Sullivan and other scholars and includes an interview with Raymond Jungles.
More information
Exhibition dates
From June 8 to September 29, 2019
Location Localización
The New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Blvd, The Bronx, NY 10458. USA EEUU
Title
Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx
Exhibition curator and designer
Exhibition curator.- Raymond Jungles and Curator.- Edward J. Sullivan.
Roberto Burle Marx
Roberto Burle Marx (born in São Paulo, Brazil, August 4, 1909 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 4, 1994) He was a fundamental figure in modern art and the garden movement in Latin America during the second half of the 20th century. His powerful modern vision produced thousands of gardens and landscapes, including the famous mosaic curved walkways on Rio's Copacabana Beach. He was the fourth son of Rebecca Cecília Burle, a member of the traditional Pernambuco family of French ancestry, Burle Dubeux, and Wilhelm Marx, a German Jew born in Stuttgart and raised in Trier. The family moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1913.
Burle Marx's first landscaping inspirations came while studying painting in Germany, where he often visited the Botanical Garden in Berlin and first learned about Brazil's native flora. Upon returning to Brazil in 1930, he began collecting plants in and around his home. He went to school at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio in 1930 where he focused on visual arts under Leo Putz and Candido Portinari. While in school he associated with several of Brazil's future leaders in architecture and botanists who continued to be of significant influence in his personal and professional life. One of these was his professor, Brazilian Modernism's Lucio Costa, the architect and planner who lived down the street from Burle.
In 1932, Burle Marx designed his first landscape for a private residence by the architects Lucio Costa and Gregori Warchavchik. This project, the Schwartz house was the beginning of a collaboration with Costa which was enriched later by Oscar Niemeyer who designed the Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939. Niemeyer also designed the Pampulha complex in 1942 for which Marx designed gardens. His first garden design was completed in 1933. In 1937, Burle Marx gained international recognition and admiration for this abstract design of a roof garden for the Ministry of Education building.
In 1949 he acquired the Sítio de Santo Antonio da Bica, a 365,000m² estate in the Barra de Guaratiba neighborhood on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Burle Marx began taking expeditions into the Brazilian rain forest with botanists, landscape architects, architects and other researchers to gather plant specimens. He learned to practice studying plants in situ from the botanist Henrique Lahmeyer de Mello Barreto and established his garden, nursery and tropical plant collection at Guaratiba. This property was donated to the Brazilian government in 1985 and became a national monument. Now called Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, under the direction of IPHAN-Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional / Ministério da Cultura, it houses over 3,500 species of plants. The house was rebuilt in a valley on the site of a garden house belonging to the original plantation estate.
Roberto Burle Marx founded a landscape studio in 1955 and in the same year he founded a landscape company, called Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. He opened an office in Caracas, Venezuela in 1956 and started working with architects Jose Tabacow and Haruyoshi Ono in 1968. Marx worked on commissions thorough out Brazil, Argentina, in Chile and many other South American countries, France, South Africa, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Roberto Burle Marx's 62-year career ended when he died June 4, 1994 two months before his 85th birthday.
Burle Marx's first landscaping inspirations came while studying painting in Germany, where he often visited the Botanical Garden in Berlin and first learned about Brazil's native flora. Upon returning to Brazil in 1930, he began collecting plants in and around his home. He went to school at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio in 1930 where he focused on visual arts under Leo Putz and Candido Portinari. While in school he associated with several of Brazil's future leaders in architecture and botanists who continued to be of significant influence in his personal and professional life. One of these was his professor, Brazilian Modernism's Lucio Costa, the architect and planner who lived down the street from Burle.
In 1932, Burle Marx designed his first landscape for a private residence by the architects Lucio Costa and Gregori Warchavchik. This project, the Schwartz house was the beginning of a collaboration with Costa which was enriched later by Oscar Niemeyer who designed the Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939. Niemeyer also designed the Pampulha complex in 1942 for which Marx designed gardens. His first garden design was completed in 1933. In 1937, Burle Marx gained international recognition and admiration for this abstract design of a roof garden for the Ministry of Education building.
In 1949 he acquired the Sítio de Santo Antonio da Bica, a 365,000m² estate in the Barra de Guaratiba neighborhood on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Burle Marx began taking expeditions into the Brazilian rain forest with botanists, landscape architects, architects and other researchers to gather plant specimens. He learned to practice studying plants in situ from the botanist Henrique Lahmeyer de Mello Barreto and established his garden, nursery and tropical plant collection at Guaratiba. This property was donated to the Brazilian government in 1985 and became a national monument. Now called Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, under the direction of IPHAN-Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional / Ministério da Cultura, it houses over 3,500 species of plants. The house was rebuilt in a valley on the site of a garden house belonging to the original plantation estate.
Roberto Burle Marx founded a landscape studio in 1955 and in the same year he founded a landscape company, called Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. He opened an office in Caracas, Venezuela in 1956 and started working with architects Jose Tabacow and Haruyoshi Ono in 1968. Marx worked on commissions thorough out Brazil, Argentina, in Chile and many other South American countries, France, South Africa, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Roberto Burle Marx's 62-year career ended when he died June 4, 1994 two months before his 85th birthday.
