Building on the success of his 2012 exhibition at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., and 2013 show at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens & Museum of Art in Nashville, Tenn., British artist Bruce Munro is once again dazzling audiences with his use of light as a creative medium at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens (ABG). On view through Oct. 3, the site-specific exhibition titled, “Bruce Munro: Light in the Garden,” features six of the artist’s large-scale, mixed-media light installations: Forest of Light, Water Towers, Beacon, Eden Blooms, Three Degrees, and Swing Low. It is his sixth solo exhibition in the U.S. “This exhibition will be something unlike any other that Atlantans have experienced,” said Garden President and CEO Mary Pat Matheson in a press statement. “At dusk, the Garden will become this enchanting yet natural landscape that visitors just have to see to believe.”
Finally, Swing Low is a large-scale version of a piece first made for a private residence in London. A series of giant illuminated spheres that form an arc, it is suspended over the Fern Dell Fountain in the ABG’s Southern Seasons Garden.
Munro first set up his studio in 1992 and with his team of designers and technicians has created exhibition works and commissioned pieces around the world. The botanical garden settings in the U.S. have proved a particularly conducive environment for his work providing expansive landscapes that allow his work to flourish at a grand scale. The current exhibition was overseen by 11 members of Munro’s studio team and took 10 months to design and another five months to construct. The works, which use more than106 light sources and 205-plus miles of fiber optic cable, were shipped from the U.K. to the U.S. in two 40-foot-containers where 1,104 volunteer hours were spent aiding Munro’s team with the local installation.
“Bruce Munro: Light in the Garden,” is on view through Oct. 3, 2015. For further details visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s website.
