Calendar
Sculptors Celebrate the Legacy of Fred and Lena Meijer
June 4, 2010 – January 2, 2011
Through the generosity of Fred and Lena Meijer, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park has assembled one of the world’s foremost collections of Modern and Contemporary sculpture. In honor of the Meijer legacy and in celebration of Meijer Gardens’ 15th anniversary, contemporary sculptors represented in the permanent collection will be displaying new work in this unique gallery exhibition. From Louise Bourgeois and Deborah Butterfield, to Mark di Suvero and Antony Gormley, to Claes Oldenburg and Tom Otterness, many artists have developed a special affinity for Meijer Gardens and the Meijers themselves. This exhibition individually examines the present endeavors of numerous iconic masters from across the contemporary scene and collectively commemorates the breadth and depth of the permanent collection developed with the support of Fred and Lena Meijer.
Lecture: Dreams, Bronze and Cranes: The Developing Legacy of Fred and Lena Meijer
Tuesday, September 14, 7pm
Joe Becherer, Vice President/Curator
Explore how the world-class collection at Meijer Gardens has developed the last 15 years. Listen to background information and insight on the artists in the collection from the Chief Curator. Discover how a collection grows from a few sculptures to an internationally recognized sculpture park.
GALLRY WALK
PERSPECTIVES
Tuesday, October 19, 7 pm
David Hooker, Loretta Towne, Jeanine Vogel
It is not necessary to be an art expert to find deeper meaning in art. Listen to the President and CEO, Membership Manager and Café Manager share their own perspectives of Sculptors Celebrate the Legacy of Fred and Lena Meijer and compare them to your own.
C. SCHOENKNECHT & W. PAUL SCULPTURE LECTURE
Deborah Butterfield
Tuesday, October 26, 7 pm
“The horse,” says sculptor Deborah Butterfield, “changed the history of the world.” And it also changed the history of Meijer Gardens, which features two Butterfield horses in its permanent collection—and will feature Butterfield herself in a lecture October 26 as the guest speaker for the C. Schoenknecht & W. Paul Sculpture Lecture and in conjunction with the exhibition Sculptors Celebrate the Legacy of Fred and Lena Meijer. The lecture begins at 7 pm in the Grand Room; it is free for members and $12 for non-members.
Butterfield’s Cabin Creek was introduced to the permanent collection in 1999 and revolutionized the direction of collecting at Meijer Gardens. “Cabin Creek helped everyone understand there were so many interesting and important ways of realizing a form,” says Joseph Antenucci Becherer, Vice President and Chief Curator. Most recently, Butterfield is one of more than 20 sculptors from around the globe with a sculpture in the permanent collection, who have sent a work of art to honor Fred and Lena and to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Meijer Gardens. The exhibition extends to January 2, 2011.
Butterfield’s contribution to the legacy exhibition is a horse sculpture titled Billings that was created in 1996. Her two pieces in the permanent collection are Cabin Creek (1999), which is at the entrance to the Sculpture Park; and Small Dry Fork Horse (1978), which is indoors in The Commons. “I was born on the day of the Kentucky Derby, when a horse named Ponder won, and I think this is the reason for all of this—it’s really not my fault!,” Butterfield says about her work. “The first thing that I saw in my life that I remembered looking important and wonderful was a horse; I was just moved by them in a non-rational passionate way before I even had words to describe it.”
Butterfield purchased her first horse as an undergraduate ceramics student and subsequently created her first equine sculpture. Since then, her artistic direction has been focused on horses, specifically the intelligent mare rather than the warhorse that is typical in the history of art. In contrast to traditional equine sculptures, Butterf ield has explored the theme using unorthodox materials, including mud, sticks, discarded wood, metal, glass, wire, and natural and industrial found objects. The artist’s sensitivity for her subject goes beyond the animal’s form and movement; an inner spirit or personality is gradually revealed.
“You can look at them as just horses, or you can look at them as portraits… initially all my horses were mirrors,” Butterfield says. She argues that the significance of the horse is much more than personal—she contends that the expanded use of horses for farming, transportation and warfare was “bigger than the nuclear bomb” in terms of its impact on the world.
Enhance Your Experience
Download mp3 recordings with the artists in the Legacy exhibition to your iPod or mp3 player to enhance your sculptural experience. Don't have an iPod? Stop by the Peter M. Wege Library and pick up an audio wand to learn more about Sculptors Celebrate the Legacy of Fred and Lena Meijer. Listen to many of the artists discuss their work in the exhibition and also their sculptures in our permanent collection. Audio wands are free for members and $1 for non-members. Guests can download podcasts of the entire tour plus other sculptures and gardens on www.meijergardens.org
Download Legacy Audio Tour 6.5 MB zip file
Film: Louse Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine
Tuesday, October 12, 7 pm
in collaboration with Hope College
This film is a journey inside the life and imagination of an icon of modern art. There is no separation between Bourgeois’ life as an artist and the memories and emotions that affected her every day. As an artist, she was at the forefront of successive new developments, but always on her own inventive and disquieting terms. At the age of 71, in 1982, she became the first woman to be honored with a major retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Since then, she created her most powerful and persuasive work. As director/producer Amei Wallach notes: “We filmed intense, and sometimes hilarious encounters with Louise and her work in both her Brooklyn studio and Manhattan home starting in 1993. We videotaped conversations where she trusted us with the childhood sources of her pain and invited us into the ritualistic process by which her memories become embodied in objects and installations. We filmed her friends and her work here and abroad through the autumn of 2007."
Above: Sophie Ryder. Open Hand.
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Knife Ship 1:12, 2008. Photo courtesy of the artists.
Jaume Plensa. Irma IV. Photo courtesy of the artist.