On view through June 26 at our Downtown Sarasota campus
Selby Gardens’ 2022 Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition reunites two vanguard artists of the late 20th century and puts their nature-inspired work in dialogue with newly imagined horticultural installations throughout our 15-acre Downtown Sarasota campus.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith: Flowers, Poetry, and Light spotlights the creative practices of Mapplethorpe, one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century, and legendary singer-songwriter and punk-poet Smith, who was Mapplethorpe’s creative soulmate and frequent portrait subject. An immersive, multisensory experience, the exhibition features several of Mapplethorpe’s exquisite photographs of flowers, Smith’s haunting lyrics and poetry about flowers and nature, and stunning new horticultural vignettes in our Tropical Conservatory and Gardens that reflect their intertwined work through living art.
This year’s Goldstein Exhibition is the first time Selby Gardens has featured a photographer and a living artist.
Begun in 2015, the Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition Series examines major artists and their relationships to nature in the context of a botanical garden. Seeing master works of art—often on loan from major art institutions around the world—in a garden setting awakens new comparisons in viewers’ minds. The 2021 exhibition in the series, Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!, transformed Selby Gardens into Monet’s famed gardens of Giverny through the Pop Art lens of Roy Lichtenstein. Learn more here about past Goldstein Exhibitions.