I admit to being a little flummoxed at the Tulsa Botanic Garden’s new art exhibition, “FLORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN,” a collection of flower and animal sculptures by Santa Fe artists Jennifer and Kevin Box. On one hand, the sculptures are large and pleasing, their 2D surfaces as smooth as a half-rendered tulip in Animal Crossing. On the other hand, their largeness and pleasingness are just about the only things you can say about them.
Kevin Box grew up in Bartlesville, his website mentions, the bio copy painting him as growing up under the shadow of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower. (It also mentions that he “was conceived in New Mexico,” a fact I learned against my will.) It’s not the only place in which the website pairs Box with Wright; the Kevin Box Studio property in Santa Fe “was master planned by the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture in 2007 to become a world class destination,” according to the About page.
It’s certainly a good idea to associate yourself with Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s work was defined by thoughtfulness and attention to detail, not only in the process, but in the final result. Box’s website lists similar impressive claims about the studio property and his own art making process: it employs over 100 people directly and indirectly; it’s fully solar; it recycles 100% of its waste water; it uses recycled metal in the casting process. This is all great! It doesn’t, however, make the realized product terribly interesting. These large origami flowers say very little about themselves or their worldview except that they are large origami flowers whose creators want them shown and sold.
Don’t get me wrong; people will enjoy this. There’s a childlike joy that comes from seeing one of these big motherfuckers rise up over the gardened landscape. I just don’t find much of it terribly compelling as art. Even the title, a portmanteau of flower (or possibly flora) and origami, reads like a sophomore’s idea of what fine art is supposed to be: if you put two concepts next to each other, it’s art!
The work is described by the Garden as “museum-quality,” which is a really specific thing to say; it means that this art has a quality which leads to its deserving to be in a museum. Kevin Box’s website says that his work is held by three museums, and so on those three levels it’s true. On the other hand, I’m not sure why exactly this statement is issued, unless it is an attempt to push the claim that his work should be in more museums, and I’m not sure I agree with that claim. What I see in FLORIGAMI, mostly, is one idea done over and over.
There are moments in the show that help it rise above its own simplicity. “Stars of the Show” is aptly named, as it's the best piece in the show. Quieter than the rest, it displays a folded piece of paper (here cast as metal) as well as the origami shape that it eventually folds into. “This is how we make the art” pieces aren’t usually all that strong for me, but in this show, they pop, providing a sense of texture, closeness, and intimacy that are denied in the other pieces’ largesses.
The only other piece that did much for me was “Carried Away,” a piece of cast bronze shaped into a dress being carried away by butterflies cut out of the dress itself.
Potentially trite butterflies aside, this work’s sudden appearance in the midst of the flowers and animals gave me, for a moment, something resembling a critical idea: here is a woman, only suggested by her gown, being carried away by the very fabric she wears. The caption asks “does it remind you of a fairytale story?” No: in fact, it reminds me of real life. What woman hasn’t felt that societal expectations around dress and beauty are carrying them away—and indeed, hasn’t felt invisible? In this piece we have the only thing in the show, to me, that adds up to a complete artistic thought.
That said, the standards of a professional critic are higher than a powder-coated fabricated aluminum trio of tulips. Your kids will adore this, as will people who aren’t jaded by years of exposure to dense, claustrophobically thought-provoking art. I love the Botanic Garden and always will; if I wasn't paid to critically review these metal flowers, I would go, “Oh, that’s nice.” Because it is.
