Burle Marx at MuBE: a lesson in art and ecology

Exhibition bringing together the many facets of the brilliant Brazilian landscape architect extended through May 25

There are excellent exhibitions on view in the city, but I recommend Burle Marx: arte, paisagem e botânica, a lesson in art, science, and ecology.

Curated by Cauê Alves, it brings together some seventy works by Burle Marx, placing them in dialogue with other artists, including Britain’s Margaret Mee and Brazil’s Caio Reisewitz.

Although best known for his landscape architecture, a field in which Burle Marx became one of the major names in contemporary history, the exhibition shows that he was a multidisciplinary artist who explored an exceptionally wide range of media and artistic languages.

Drawings, paintings, sculptures, and tapestries are among the works visitors will find, along with design objects, landscape projects, and records of botanical species and scientific expeditions.

Landscape architecture as abstract art

What I liked most were the landscape projects. They are so beautiful… True works of abstract art. They give visitors a vivid sense of the radical nature of his organic forms and his use of color. The featured image in this post, for example, is the design for the garden of Palácio Capanema, made in 1938.

I was also enchanted by the exhibition’s botanical section, featuring plants collected by Burle Marx on his expeditions throughout Brazil. He discovered thirty-five species on these journeys…

I would also draw attention to a detail of this exhibition that should not be overlooked and is outside the galleries. Outdoors, a temporary vinyl reconstruction reproduces the monumental stone mosaic the artist designed in his first study for MuBE’s garden, which is also by Burle Marx.

Equally important are the quotations and reflections by this artist-scientist displayed on the walls. In them, Burle Marx emphasizes the political and social importance of ecological awareness. Particularly today, as we witness so many assaults on our environment, Burle Marx’s images, words, and work seem to express a commitment to other, more desirable and fluid futures.

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