A new public garden in Fairmount Park

Linda Grimwade

A recent visit to the Philadelphia Art Museum steps found the installation of an exhibit by Sol DeWitt. Anyone that visits the park or the river walk will enjoy this exhibit as it uses the garden as the actual exhibit. Another great garden in the Philadelphia area.

Lines in Four Directions in Flowers
Sol LeWitt, American
Commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association in 1981
Realized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2012 in cooperation with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation
Flower plantings, evergreen hedges, gravel paths

Sol LeWitt: Lines in Four Directions in Flowers

May 24, 2012

In 1981, leading conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (American, 1928–2007) was invited by the Fairmount Park Art Association (currently known as the Association for Public Art) to propose a public artwork for a site in Fairmount Park. He selected the long, rectangular plot of land known as the Reilly Memorial and submitted a drawing with instructions. Installed thirty years after its conception, Lines in Four Directions in Flowers is a work of monumental scale, made up of more than 7,000 plantings arranged in strategically configured rows. In his original proposal, the artist describes an installation of flower plantings of "four different colors (white, yellow, red & blue) in four equal rectangular areas, in rows of four directions (vertical, horizontal, diagonal right & left) framed by evergreen hedges of about 2’ height. In the winter the rows of plants would retain their linear direction, in the summer the flowers would bloom and provide the color."

Sol LeWitt: Lines in Four Directions in Flowers will be on view over the next two years at its intended site, with perennial flowers blooming throughout the horticultural season. Landscape architecture and urban design firm OLIN was responsible for overseeing the interpretation and execution of LeWitt's design. Groundswell Design Group, LLC, a landscape architect design-and-build firm, planted the flowers, which were grown at the Perennial Farm in Glen Arm, Maryland. Groundswell will maintain the garden throughout the duration of its two-year installation.

You can find out more at: 

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/770.html