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Miami Herald
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Exploring Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI
The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park encompasses 158 acres of indoor and outdoor botanical and artistic experiences, just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. With outdoor trails and nature areas, the campus offers plenty of room to roam and explore. Built in 1995, Meijer Gardens has added to its original footprint, now offering both indoor and outdoor experiences year-round. Along with many permanent exhibits, you'll find an annual springtime butterfly exhibit as well as their wintertime holiday exhibition. Over the years, as a West Michigan resident, I've visited Meijer Gardens several times with my family. When my kids were small, they loved the Lena Meijer Children's Garden. Prepare to spend a lot of time wandering this area with your kids as they explore. My kids' undeniable favorite was always the Great Lakes Garden. Even in cooler weather, they loved splashing in the waterways of this raised water play exhibit. And my husband and I appreciated the surrounding benches that let us relax and watch when we needed a break. But really, who can resist water and boats? We were usually splashing along right with them. Regular storytelling and other events are held in the Children's Garden, including special offerings for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and more. The Meijer Gardens Sculpture Park features works by world-renowned artists such as Auguste Rodin, Dale Chihuly, and Edgar Degas. Many sculptures are spread throughout the entire campus, but most are collected in this specific area. Paved pathways allow you to wander as much as you want and explore at your own pace through fields, woods and waterways. On one visit to Meijer Gardens, a close friend and I took our teen daughters. With older kids, we could explore further and more in depth than when they were younger, and the girls loved posing for selfies and taking photos and videos to share on social media. There's a lot to see here, both manmade and in nature. In one portion of the sculpture park, waterfalls flow into a large koi pond where you can simply sit and relax at your leisure. You never know what to expect around the next bend – beautiful foliage or incredible works of art that you can walk right up to. This 24-foot bronze sculpture was brought to life by Nina Akamu in 1999, based on drawings by Leonardo da Vinci for a project that he never completed. There were only two created – one in Italy, and the other here at the Meijer Gardens. It's truly an epic sight to stand near, and you can even pose for pictures right underneath. This beautiful, tranquil area was added to the gardens in 2015 and was the highlight of our experience this summer. I think we explored just about every path in the Japanese Garden. The area is centered on a large pond, with waterfalls, boulders, bridges, trees, flowers, and of course art, everywhere. You can walk right down to the water's edge and follow winding stone pathways, or stay on the paved trail to explore. Nature pulls you in from every direction from the sounds of the wind to the smells of the trees and the feel of the path under your feet and the branches swaying as you pass by. Some of the paths closer to the water are made of stepping stones or other material that is difficult or impossible to traverse on wheels, so if you have a stroller or wheelchair in your group you'll want to stay on the higher paved pathways. A spiral path leads upward to the highest elevation in the garden for a beautiful view. There is also a gazebo right on the water and a Japanese tea house. Several areas are clearly meant for quiet reflection and scattered benches also offer places to relax and simply enjoy the environment. The only one of the many gardens that I have yet to explore is the Michigan's Farm Garden. I know that it offers a look into what life was like for farmers in our state during the 1930s. A variety of plants and vegetables can be found there as well as sculptures of farm animals and a 3/4 scale replica of an actual farmhouse. I can't wait until my next visit to learn more about and experience this garden. This area is one of my favorites at Meijer Gardens. The sight and sounds of the large, multi-tiered waterfall make a wonderful backdrop to the large pond filled with koi fish. There are Adirondack chairs located throughout, so you can sit down and relax and just take in the view. We've seen several wedding party photography sessions in this area too, as the waterfall makes a lovely backdrop. The Amphitheater Garden is the location for an annual outdoor summer concert series. My husband and I were fortunate enough to see the Indigo Girls here several years ago. The garden makes for a wonderful backdrop for live music and the amphitheater offers a variety of seating options. Our seats were near the rear, but we still had great views and loved the ambiance. The 2025 Fifth Third Bank Summer Concert series includes favorites like Wynonna Judd, Train and Cheap Trick. I was hoping we could make it to see Andy Grammer or Maren Morris, but both concerts are already sold out. SheBuysTravel Tip: Get tickets as soon as they're announced, especially for popular bands or singers! Along with beautiful gardens outdoors, there are several indoor spaces that aren't to be missed. My kids love the unique carnivorous plant house – the only dedicated display of carnivorous plants in the United States. The five-story Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory displays more than 500 species of plants in a lush setting. Tropical birds also make this area their home, and every spring, you can visit the annual Butterflies Are Blooming exhibit here to see and walk among thousands of tropical butterflies. It's really an incredible experience to have butterflies land right on your head or shoulders as you walk along and explore. From the tropics to the desert… On our visit this past summer, the teens really enjoyed the succulents and cacti of the Earl and Donnalee Holton Arid Garden. We don't see many of these kinds of plants naturally here in the Midwest, so it's fun to explore! Other indoor gardens include the Victorian Garden Parlor and the Seasonal Display Greenhouse. From November 26, 2025 until January 4, 2026, you can experience the University of Michigan Health Christmas & Holiday Traditions exhibition. This annual exhibition is extremely popular, with different themes making it unique every year. The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is located on East Beltline Ave. NE in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The post Exploring Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI appeared first on She Buys Travel. Copyright © 2025 SheBuysTravel · All Rights Reserved
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Rodin's rowdy rival: Medardo Rosso, the anarchist who brought sculpture into the modern era
If you ask art dealers and auctioneers about the legacy of the turn-of-the-century sculptor Medardo Rosso, you are likely to be met with a uniform reply: 'Medardo who?' There's no judgment here. I've worked in and around the art world for 20 years, and until recently I hadn't heard of Rosso either. In artists' ateliers, however, Rosso has long been a familiar and revered name. Auguste Rodin, the father of modern sculpture, was his champion and friend until the pair's fallout. Émile Zola was a fan. The playwright Edward Albee owned a version of his sculpture Enfant Juif; French poet Guillaume Apollinaire described him as 'without a doubt the greatest living sculptor'. Rosso, a new retrospective at Kunstmuseum Basel, contends he brought sculpture into the modern era with busts and figures that seemed to materialise organically out of his materials – wax, plaster, bronze – like spectres in motion. The Swiss art institution has had no trouble finding 60 contemporary artists who feel a kinship with his sculptures, photographs and drawings, his fleeting impressions of street scenes, cafes and clouds – from Louise Bourgeois's textile sculptures that look like entrails to Francesca Woodman's wraithlike photographs. 'If you sit 10 gallerists and collectors around a table, nine out of the 10 will not know who Medardo Rosso is,' says Elena Filipovic, the director of Kunstmuseum Basel, which is holding a retrospective on this shadowy figure. 'If you sit 10 artists around the table, nine out of the 10 will fall to the floor with excitement.' There are good reasons why Rosso has fallen into relative obscurity. Some, albeit unintentionally, are Rosso's fault. For instance, his practice was neurotically self-contained. While Rodin followed the template for becoming famous, Rosso followed his own instincts. Rodin knew to create monumental works – 'size matters,' says Filipovic – and that professional marketing was key. Rosso created small-scale works, works seen in the studio, home and exhibitions but not out on the boulevards, and he liked to promote them himself. He worked, repeatedly, on a relatively small number of motifs. One of his most famous works, Ecce Puer (1906), is of a boy's head shrouded in a sheet; he's there but not there. Another, Enfant Malade (1893-95), features the inclined head of a sick child, tipping possibly towards death. We often use the term 'in the flesh' when standing in front of a sculpture, but with Rosso the phrase has a particular resonance: his faces, just that little bit smaller than in real life, with dimensions that add to a sense of unease, look as if they might blink their waxy eyelids. His sickly yellow lumps are not pretty. They're not Degas's dancers. Perhaps the most disturbing of all though is Aetas Aurea (1886), a study of his wife, Giuditta, and their son, Francesco, in which the pair look conjoined at their cheeks. They melt into the background. It's a horror movie prop rather than a loving family portrait. Other figures are drunk, leaning, screaming. His wax sculptures are the colour of nicotine stains. Born in Turin in 1858, the second son of a railway worker, Rosso opened his first atelier in Milan in 1882 and circulated with members of the artistic group Scapigliatura – translated as 'dishevelment' – a Bohemian set of a socialists and anarchists. Living up to the name, Rosso's studies in the city's esteemed Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera were cut short when he was expelled for assaulting another student. Three years later, however, he had a wife and son, and was successfully forging a career in Paris, wooing patrons and winning commissions. Rosso was definitely a 'very idiosyncratic personality, very persuasive, powerful, winning, someone with a big heart, especially for children, but also suspicious, controlling, obsessively pursuing his cause,' says Heike Eipeldauer, a curator and Rosso expert at the Mumok museum in Vienna, Austria. There were a lot of disagreements: his wife left him and one of his closest friends cut him off after an argument about debts. And then there was Rodin, who he got into a public spat with over who had influenced whom. 'They were friends, until they weren't,' says Filipovic. His intractable nature could work against him. He cast his own works – eating into his time and reducing the number of works created – while Rodin used foundries. And Rodin hired Edward Steichen and other well-known photographers to capture his works and produce portraits of him as the great master in the studio (often with a hammer and chisel, even though he never carved marble himself). Rosso's sculptures were only ever photographed by the artist himself. 'He wanted to control the image,' says Filipovic. 'He understood that photography and how you saw the work was also the work.' The exhibition features about 200 of Rosso's photographs: frail prints of sculptures, some as small as stamps, otherworldly portraits rather than iconic marketing shots. He lit and staged them, with an ethereal aesthetic that echoed the Victorian craze for spirit photography. While Rosso's photographic studies reanimate objects, his studio-set self-portraits conjure up a phantom, his scruffy features bleached by the sun through his studio's skylight, his figure blurred in movement: studies as faint and mercurial as his artistic footprint. Having spent his last two decades constantly reworking a few subjects, the artist died in 1928, aged 69. He had dropped glass negatives on his foot, resulting first in the amputation of several toes, then part of his leg and finally a fatal case of blood poisoning. A gradual erosion. Today, Rosso's complicated nature hampers research, explains his great-granddaughter, Danila Marsure Rosso, who manages the artist's estate. 'He destroyed all the letters he received because he said that nobody should enter in his private life,' she says. There are no biographies of Rosso. There are dozens of Rodin. Rosso's auction record stands at £341,000 (for a version of Enfant Juif, sold in London in 2015); Rodin's record was set in 2016, when the master's marble Eternal Springtime sold in New York for $20m (£14m). Legacies can pay dividends. But Rosso's quirks had their own creative rewards. He invited groups into his studio to watch him sculpt and cast his works, as if he were a performer. 'It was about understanding that there is magic in this making,' says Filipovic. 'Rodin couldn't do that because he used a foundry.' Another idiosyncrasy was Rosso's fondness for installing sculptures in collectors' homes in strange, jarring configurations. Context was everything, but not always logical. I can imagine him sitting uncomfortably close to guests at dinner parties just to observe their reaction. Was he a control freak? 'Certainly,' says Filipovic. 'But don't you want that in an artist?'
Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Rodin Museum A Powerful, Relaxing Must-Visit In Paris
One of the many magnets of Paris is the city's vast trove of great art. From the Louvre to the Montmartre District to the city's galleries, museums and outdoor installations, Paris is an art lover's paradise. Who are the most famous artists whose work you can see in Paris? Number one, of course, would be Leonardo da Vinci, whose Mona Lisa at the Louvre is always surrounded by a gawking mob. The crowds got so bad that the staff at the Louvre recently held an impromptu strike motivated by over-tourism. Then there's Vincent van Gogh, whose famed self-portrait and "Starry Night Over the Rhône" are in the Musée d'Orsay. Claude Monet's 'Water Lilies' is at the Musée de l'Orangerie, as are works by Renoir, Matisse and Picasso. 'David Hockney 25,' a popular show running through August 31, honors living master Hockney with an exhibit of 400 of his works at FOUNDATION LOUIS VUITTON. But none of these luminaries have a big Parisian museum and garden devoted solely to their work. Nor are these artists considered among the most famous sculptors of their time. That honor goes to Auguste Rodin, (1840-1917). A few of his masterpieces at the Rodin Museum include Monument to Balzac, Danaid, The Age of Bronze, Monument to the Burghers of Calais, The Gates of Hell, and of course, The Thinker. Rodin Museum (Paris) getty The museum is located at 77 Rue de Varenne, in easy walking distance of the Tuileries and the Seine. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10AM to 6:30PM. Admission is 14 euros, although various passes and 'two-fers' like a combined ticket for the Musée Rodin + Musée d'Orsay for 25 euro are available. Much of Rodin's journey is shown at the museum. Rodin the man doesn't quite come alive at his museum in Paris, but his statues do. His work almost vibrates with energy, as you see a head or a foot emerging from the stone. The museum shows off multiple plaster casts and sculptures of feet and hands, as Rodin was constantly working to achieve realistic detail. Yet it has also been said that 'Rodin knew when to stop polishing.' Indeed, many of his works rise out of rough, seemingly unfinished stone, even classic pieces like 'The Kiss.' Rodin said his approach to sculpting women was to portray them 'as full partners in ardor,' but such eroticism made his works controversial. A bronze version of 'The Kiss' sent to an 1893 Exposition in Chiago was hidden from the general public as 'unsuitable,' shown only on special request. Rodin is best-known for The Thinker and The Kiss , but the museum and the sculpture gardens reveal his fluency in plaster, stone, marble and bronze, as well as his drawing and painting. The museum also includes paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet which Rodin collected . In the 1980's, the museum acquired works by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (The Scream) who was heavily influenced by Rodin. The museum is by no means as crowded as the Louvre, but it can get a little stuffy inside. That's when it's time to step out into the cool green gardens and wander among the powerful bronzes. The Thinker, which has pride of place outside in the sculpture garden, dominates the space but may be the least dynamic of all the pieces. The rectangular gardens cover seven acres. The green retreat includes a fountain, rose gardens, lawns, and tree shaded areas where sculptures are displayed. Exhausted art lovers can sit in the shade at a bench or a table at the small café. One of the most striking works in the gardens (other than The Thinker) is the Gates of Hell. In 1880 Rodin got a commission to create a bronze door for the Museum of Decorative Arts. The door, inspired by Dante's Inferno and later known as The Gates of Hell was commissioned for delivery in 1884. It was still unfinished at Rodin's death in 1917. Yet it would serve as source material for his most famous work, such as The Burghers of Calais, The Kiss, and The Thinker itself. The Burghers of Calais commemorates the six nobles who volunteered to hand over the keys to the city of Calais to the victorious King of England at the end of the siege of men face their death (each, barefoot, wears a rope around their neck) with their faces showing a timeless mixture of emotions, from nobility to despair, agony and acceptance. On a lighter note, the great French writer Balzac comes to life in his plump glory, wearing the bathrobe he wore to write, his great head surveying passersby. The garden is a peaceful space where visitors can enjoy the sculptures amidst nature. There is also a pleasant café where food and ice cream are served. A pair of ducks wandered among the art lovers the day we were there. Rodin, from a poor family, went to a school to learn drawing and modeling skills at 13. He tried three times to enter the highly competitive Ecole des Beaux-Arts but failed the competitive examinations three times. At 18, he decided to earn his living by doing decorative stonework. He worked with other sculptors on decorative bronzes and did decorations to monuments in Brussels. Dismissed by a mentor, he traveled to Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice, where he gained inspiration from the work of great sculptors like Michelangelo and Donatello. He exhibited his first original work, The Age of Bronze, in Brussels and Paris. The emotional pain and the realism of the subject figure, so different from contemporary sculpture, led to accusations that he molded it on a living model. Rodin finally started getting significant commissions in his late 30's, with his most significant period of work being from around 1880 to 1910. Before his death, Rodin bequeathed all his works and possessions to France. The gift was debated and finally approved in the French parliament. Rodin wrote in 1909.'I bequeath to the state all my works in plaster, marble, bronze and stone, together with my drawings and the collection of antiquities that I had such pleasure in assembling for the education and training of artists and workers. And I ask the state to keep all these collections in the Hôtel Biron, which will be the Musée Rodin, reserving the right to reside there for the rest of my life.' The state purchased the hotel and committed to turning it into a museum dedicated to the artist, with one of the most beautiful gardens in Paris. The property today incudes the museum, the gardens, a lovely gift shop and a children's creative space, The Atelier Rodin, for children to explore sculpture through play and creativity. It's free for children accompanied by an adult. Children can model and create, and experience the joy of assembly and balance, as Rodin did. 'In the 1860s, when Rodin began making sculpture, art was deeply rooted in the past. It told stories from religion, history, myth, and literature, and it told them as if the artist had been a witness to the events. Just thirty years later, by the peak of his career, the 1890s, Auguste Rodin had transformed sculpture into something that today we call modern, that spoke to the artist's and viewer's emotions and imaginations,' according to the Cantor Foundation, which distributes Rodin's work to museums and did a film Rodin: The Gates of Hell. 'By the time Rodin died in 1917 he had through prodigious talent and a remarkable volume of work, challenged the established styles of his youth and revolutionized sculpture. Today his pioneering work is a crucial link between traditional and modern art.'
Indian Express
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Rediscovery of Rodin's Despair — and lessons in rejuvenation
For years, it sat atop the family piano, a purported reproduction of a piece from Auguste Rodin's monumental The Gates of Hell. Now, the 11-inch sculpture of a woman clutching her foot, locked in an eternal posture of defeat, has pirouetted into the limelight, fetching nearly a million dollars at an auction in France after it was outed as the real thing: Rodin's Le Désespoir (Despair). Created in 1890 and last sold in 1906, it was only rediscovered when the auctioneer chanced upon what the family thought was a fake last year. With the authentication, it has become a windfall for its unsuspecting owners. The course of art history, of course, is not entirely new to such serendipitous events. Róbert Berény's Sleeping Lady with Black Vase, a 1927-28 art deco portrait of his wife, Eta, was rediscovered in 2009 when historian Gergely Barki spotted it in the background of the movie Stuart Little during a Christmas watch with his daughter. The painting, thought to be lost, had been picked up by a set designer from an antique shop in California and found its way into the movie as a prop. Vincent Van Gogh's unsigned Sunset at Montmajour from Norwegian industrialist Christian Nicolai Mustad's private collection had been left to languish in the estate attic after being dismissed as a forgery. Discovered after Mustad's death, it was finally authenticated in 2013. Misplaced, mislabelled, folded into the fabric of the everyday, forgotten in time, such stories reveal art's stubborn endurance and its implicit ability to thaw into rapture. In literature, for instance, Franz Kafka, convinced of his own futility, had requested that his writings be destroyed after his death. That his friend Max Brod demurred turned Kafka's anguish into modernist gold. What Despair's reversal in fortune shows, then, is that genius mislaid is not genius lost. And that sometimes, the divide between gloom and glory is as fragile as a fleeting glance. In the right light — and with the right eye — despair may yet delight.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lost Auguste Rodin sculpture sells for €860,000 at auction in France
A small marble sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, which was long thought to be a copy, has fetched €860,000 at an auction in France, at the Château de Villandry (Indre-et-Loire), according to the website of the Rouillac auction house. 'Le Désespoir' ('Despair'), a variation on the famous 'Porte de l'Enfer' ('The Gates of Hell'), was produced around 1892. It depicts a woman hugging her knees and holding her foot. It had disappeared after being sold at an auction in 1906, and its owners had it sitting on a piano in their home, believing it was a replica. After a six-week investigation, they were informed of its authenticity. French auctioneer Aymeric Rouillac told AFP that he went to the Comité Rodin in March and the body, considered to be the leading authority on the French sculptor, confirmed it was not a fake after much research and a genealogical survey. Rouillac described the 28.5cm marble as an 'extremely rare' find. "We have rediscovered it," he added. And sold it for nearly one million dollars to an anonymous American buyer.
