Photo: New York Botanical Garden

New York Botanical Garden Is Getting an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Style Makeover This Year

News Museums Art + Architecture
by Eben Diskin Mar 25, 2021

Fans of Yayoi Kusama’s bright, surreal style need to mark their calendars for April 10, 2021. The famous contemporary artist will be taking over the New York Botanical Garden for an exhibition that explores her fascination with nature. The event will feature a wide range of her works both new and familiar — and yes, there will be pumpkins and polka dots.

Kusama: Cosmic Nature will be a huge, multisensory exhibit taking over the New York Botanical Garden from April 10 to October 31, 2021.

The 250-acre outdoor space, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building, and the Ross Gallery will be filled with her signature installations, sculptures mirrored spaces, as well as paintings and works on paper.

Visitors will be able to view Alice in Wonderland-esque artworks like the 10-foot by 20-foot floral sculptures of Hymn of Life: Tulips; the 1,400 plastic silver and reflective globes of Narcissus Garden; and a trippy Infinity Mirrored Room. There’s also the Dancing Pumpkin, a 16-foot tall gourd in a lush landscape of ferns, birches, and flowering plants. Perhaps more exciting for fans of Kusama is the Flower Obsession obliteration greenhouse. The greenhouse mirrors the artist’s other “obliteration rooms,” which replicate the physical experience of being surrounded by hallucinatory dots.

Due to the pandemic, only a limited number of guests will be allowed to visit the exhibition at once. Timed tickets are already available online, at $35 for adults and $15 for children between the ages of two and 12. Discounts are applied for New York residents.

A version of this article was previously published on July 22, 2019, and was updated on March 25, 2021, with more information.

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