BY KAREN BOSSICK
He started the New Perennial movement, using herbaceous perennials and grasses chosen as much for their structure as their flower color.
And he has become famous for prioritizing the seasonal life cycle of a plant over more decorative considerations like color in an effort to create a garden that looks interesting year-round.
Sun Valley Museum of Art will hold two film screenings depicting revolutionary Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf on Thursday, March 5, as part of its current BIG IDEA project, “The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit.
The film, “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf,” will be shown at 4:30 and 7 p.m. Thursday at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum. Tickets are $10 for museum members and $12 for nonmembers, available at www.svmoa.org or by calling 208-726-9491.
The documentary by Thomas Piper follows Oudolf over the course of five seasons, showing how he’s upended conventional notions of nature, public space and beauty itself. It also shows viewers his creative process from his abstract sketches to his theories about beauty and the ecological implications of his ideas.
Viewers are transported to his private gardens at Hummelo, to his signature public works in New York, Chicago and the Netherlands and to other locations that inspire his genius, including post-industrial forests in Pennsylvania and a new garden he is creating in Southwest England that he says is his best yet.
“His ability to plan for all seasons and all iterations in a plant’s cycle gives us a new way to look at gardens and the seasons to find beauty where at times we are conditioned not to see it,” said Kristine Bretall, director of Performing Arts at SVMoA.
- A free evening tour of the visual arts exhibition associated with the BIG IDEA project will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Museum at 5:30 p.m.