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cation destinations like Tahoe, CA and Bozeman, MT witnessing a seemingly unsustainable boom in relocations from urban cen- ters, which are spiking the cost of living and standing to reshape local identity. There’s an undeniably renewed enthusiasm for the countryside—perhaps across all strata—but most evidenced in the middle classes, where many persons can remotely work and would sooner enjoy the fresher air, no commute, and a home two or three
times the size of what they left in New York or Seattle. Like most byproducts of the pandemic, this stasis or migration illustrates a population-swollen planet and dramatic inequity.
So what about those not fortunate enough to do their work remotely? What about those in park poor, cramped cosmopolitans? Nature is increasingly prescribed as a treatment aide for anxiety and clinical depression—its value now robustly demonstrated in studies—but its access and education for many appears easier said than done. Ecology will be the great struggle of the future.
This further got me thinking about gardens and gardening. In the course of lockdowns and increased time at home, social media has ballooned with first time, or reacquainted, green thumbs. This has seemed particularly enthused in Los Angeles, where outdoor space, at least historically, has been something of its appeal. So we’re In The Garden with this issue, exploring cultivation, the inspiration of plants, and the maintenance of a sanctuary space.
To dig a bit deeper: what about the garden of the mind? What about the cultivation of our inner selves? What if gardens are not sanctioned spaces, demarcated plots, but all around us, within us? What if every atmospheric influence plays a role in one’s personal seed to sprout? The work of pioneering Japanese artist, Tetsumi Kudo (1935-1990), presents a conduit of consideration.
Opening this month—Metamorphosis—the artist’s first exhibi- tion at Hauser & Wirth New York, retrospectively explores Kudo’s notion of metamorphosis, which, according to the gallery, empha- sizes the imperative for “spiritual evolution beyond the values of Western Humanism, which he believed caused war, racism, and colonialism, and alienated people from the natural environment.”
Consider Kudo’s ‘‘cultivations’’ from 1967. These artificially colored assemblages—found opposite and later in “Sister Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?”, this issue’s central feature (pg. 176)—include the artist’s buckets, terrariums, and cages. Kudo intended his ostensively grotesque yet silly en- sembles, some of which contained embedded mirrors, “to encour- age viewers to confront and put aside the confines of ego and the values of consumerism and to understand themselves instead as part of an integrated and intricate cosmos in which nature, tech- nology, and humanity influenced each other in a system he dubbed the New Ecology.”
Perhaps Kudo’s prescience has come home to roost? Perhaps we are entering a kind of New Ecology where space, sustenance, and reprieve are under a different kind of scrutiny and consider- ation—a shared wall terrarium of possibility and interconnected- ness?
Enjoy the In The Garden Issue, and remember to water your plants, whatever or whomever they may be... but not too much.
Sincerely, Matthew
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TETSUMI KUDO. “CULTIVATION OF NATURE & PEOPLE WHO ARE LOOK- ING AT IT (DETAIL)” (1970). PLASTIC BUCKET, MIRROR, SNAIL SHELLS, ADHESIVE, PAINT, HAIR SCREWS. 7 1/2” X 9” X 9”. PHOTO BY THOMAS BARRATT. COURTESY HIROKO KUDO, THE ESTATE OF TETSUMI KUDO. © 2021 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS.