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November 17, 2024 to April 12, 2026 | Campus and Sculpture Garden

A Garden of Promise and Dissent | Campus and Sculpture Garden Installation

Artists participating in the outdoor portion of the exhibition include Kelly Akashi, Rachelle Dang, Anders Hamilton, Maren Hassinger, Gracelee Lawrence, Mary Mattingly, Brandon Ndife, and Rachel Youn.

A Garden of Promise and Dissent spans the grounds, featuring works by eight multigenerational artists who explore future gardens as embodiments of imagination and rebellion. The exhibition’s original iteration extended into the galleries with the inclusion of additional works by Terry Adkins, Teresa Baker, Alina Bliumis, Carolina Caycedo, Carl Cheng, Hugh Hayden, Max Hooper Schneider, Athena LaTocha, Cathy Lu, Jill Magid, Suchitra Mattai, Meg Webster, and Faith
Wilding.

Traditionally seen as symbols of wonder and introspection, gardens also serve as stages for civic action, environmental stewardship, and protest. Representing growth, regeneration, and resilience, gardens reflect devotion and hope, yet they can also reveal shared aspirations—whether painstakingly planned or anarchic, achieved or unrealized. The artists in this exhibition radicalize the concept of the garden to confront the complexities of our relationship with nature on a fragile planet. Their works challenge the dichotomy between natural and built environments, integrating into the landscape or mimicking nature to provoke change, defy perceptions, or unsettle the divide between the two. The exhibition explores issues related to gardens, from the commodication of vegetation and the practice of radical care to humanity’s entanglement with plants, food, and technology, as well as the garden’s role as memory, legend, and cultural artifact.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

A Garden of Promise and Dissent is curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, Diana Bowes Chief Curator.

Installation Images

Exterior view of a sculpture garden displaying a sculpture of a palm tree and a sculpture of a bush made of wire rope.
An exterior view of a garden displaying a shroud sculpture in the foreground.
An installation view of sculpture garden.

Map of Grounds

map of a sculpture garden

El Mapa en Espanol

All works h x w x d in inches unless otherwise noted.

1) Moko Fukuyama, Menagerie, 2024
Fallen timber, acrylic urethane paint, epoxy resin, inkjet print on photo paper, and steel
Courtesy of the artist

2) Gracelee Lawrence, Emotional Weather Forecast, 2022
Glass beads, stainless steel beads, stainless steel cable, and aluminum
Courtesy of the artist

3) Maren Hassinger, Garden, 2020
Concrete and wire rope
Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC

4) Anders Hamilton, Obelisk (Anew), 2024
Cremated morning glory, rare earth elements, ceramic, resin, steel, acrylic, and maple
Courtesy of the artist

5) Brandon Ndife, Shade Tree, 2022/2024
Polyurethane, resin, and metal hardware
Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York

6) Maren Hassinger, Bushes, 2021
Wire rope
Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC

7) Gracelee Lawrence, Triecious Flowers Wilt and Bloom Just Like the Rest of Us, 2022
Glass beads, stainless steel beads, stainless steel cable, hardware
Courtesy of the artist

8) Mary Mattingly, Water Body, Water Time, 2024
Steel conduit, biochar and limestone pouring bowls, ceramic, driftwood, charred wood,
medical tubing and trays, and water from the headwaters of nine rivers in Ridgefield
Courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery

9) Rachel Youn, Parade Paradis, 2022
Artificial palm head, steel, coconuts, coconut bark, and motor
Courtesy of the artist and Sargent’s Daughters

10) Rachelle Dang, Chorus, 2023
Aluminum and Imron automotive paint
Commissioned by Lighthouse Works for Fishers Island, New York
Courtesy Someday, New York

11) Kelly Akashi, Heirloom, 2022
Lost-wax cast and wire-brushed bronze
Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

12) Gracelee Lawrence, Perceived Happiness as the Ultimate Revenge, 2019
Fiberglass, epoxy resin, foam, 3D printed plastic, epoxy putty, auto paint, tubes, fountain pumps, steel, and concrete
Courtesy of the artist

Audio

Hear artist Rachelle Dang talk about her work Chorus, 2023.

Hear artist Anders Hamilton talk about his work Obelisk (Anew), 2024.

Hear artist Maren Hassinger talk about her work Garden, 2020, and Bushes, 2021.

Hear artist Mary Mattingly talk about her work Water Body, Water Time, 2024.

Links

Press Release

Press

“Featuring works by 21 artists who range in age from 30 to 82 and offer intriguingly disparate takes on nature and our relationship to it, the exhibition will cross the indoor-outdoor divide.”
—Robb Report
“Because so much of what I think about in my work is that the digital and the physical have essentially equal presence and importance in most people's daily lives. So, we spend a huge amount of time in those spaces, and I think they need to be treated like spaces we're visiting rather than as secondary concerns.' - Artist Gracelee Lawrence”
—WSHU
“The exhibition succeeds in presenting gardens as deeply contested spaces where human ambition meets natural law. Through diverse media and perspectives, these artists reveal how our relationship with nature mirrors broader social dynamics, particularly gender politics and environmental exploitation. From LaTocha’s metallic impositions to Lu’s devotional forms, from Lawrence’s hybrid figure to Dang’s hothouse critique, A Garden of Promise and Dissent fosters a rich colloquy about power, care, and resistance. In doing so, the show fills a critical lacuna in our understanding of gardens, revealing them not simply as ornamental spaces but as living laboratories where we experiment with tradition and progress, control and surrender, destruction and renewal.”
—Hyperallergic
“Gardens have been sites for the display of immense power over the earth, as in Louis XIV’s Versailles, but they have also provided spaces for resistance, as in the subsistence gardens enslaved peoples cultivated in the American South. Titled 'A Garden of Promise and Dissent,' the exhibition at the Aldrich deliberately engages this wide range of garden histories.”
—Art in America

Funders

Major support for A Garden of Promise and Dissent is provided by The Aldrich Council. Generous support is provided by Diana Bowes and Jim Torrey, Michael P. and Linda M. Dugan, and the Further Forward Foundation. Significant support is provided by The Cowles Charitable Trust, Kristina and Philip Larson, and Julie Phillips. The catalogue is supported by the Eric Diefenbach and James Keith Brown Publications Fund. Preferred Art Logistics Provider: Crozier Fine Arts.

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Moss green square book cover with "A Garden of Promise and Dissent" in black typeface centered

A Garden of Promise and Dissent Catalogue

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A Garden of Promise and Dissent

Top image: A Garden of Promise and Dissent (installation view, left, Maren Hassinger, Bushes, 2021, Courtesy the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC; center, Rachel Youn, Parade Paradis, 2022, Courtesy of the artist and Sargent's Daughters; right, Rachelle Dang, Chorus, 2023, Commissioned by Lighthouse Works for Fishers Island, NY, Courtesy Someday, New York), The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, November 17, 2024 to November 2025. Photo: Jeffrey Jenkins Projects