It’s a great and rare occurrence to see art installed in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Some might argue that this is where you go to look at nature rather than art — although tags and labels on the plants remind you that humans made this garden and bred plenty of the species in it. The Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) is an excellent choice for a show here, since he himself created parks, playgrounds and gardens around the world, drawing heavily from a Japanese art tradition that considered aesthetics in relation to nature.
Is “Isamu Noguchi at Brooklyn Botanic Garden” a great exhibition? No. The Noguchi Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are to be commended — along with the Noguchi’s senior curator, Dakin Hart, who organized the exhibition — for installing such a show, in which sculpture is exposed to the elements (and the wandering visitors).
