The Denver Botanic Gardens summer art exhibitions have always been one of the bigger events on the region’s art calendar. Over the years, the garden has produced epic shows, mostly through its process of scattering the work of such art celebrities as Dale Chihuly, Alexander Calder and Deborah Butterfield among the famous flora planted in its grounds on York Street.
The gardens have set expectations high and local art fans have come to anticipate these efforts with gusto — and often reward the efforts with repeat visits to the site.
But even the best of them have occasionally been a bit ill-fitting, and even unnecessary. I’ve enjoyed the work on its merits — who cannot appreciate a sculpture by Henry Moore, the star of the garden’s warm-weather exhibit in 2010, or the colorful, mythological animal figures made by Jacobo and María Ángeles exhibited in 2024 — but always felt the man-made art objects offered pale competition to the garden’s real heroes: the tulips, lilies, irises and peonies that give the institution its reason to exist.
For me, the art was a distraction, an effort to generate excitement and sell extra tickets — something that the garden, which is attracting large numbers of visitors lately, no longer needs to do with such desperation.
So, in that way, itap just fine that the garden has scaled back this year with a retrospective of work by the Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa titled “A New Humanism.” Visitors will see his work, some of it is large-scale and showy, but they will notice less of it along the fields and pathways of the open spaces.
Instead, the centerpiece of Plensa’s show is shifted inside, within the three indoor art galleries that the garden began programming in 2020 when it opened the Freyer-Newman Center.
Plensa, who is 70 and lives in Barcelona, is a global figure, if not a household name. He has works placed across the globe; many have emerged as popular landmarks. Among the more recognized: the 2004 “Crown Fountain” in Chicago’s Millennium Park, which features a giant LED screen that projects large human faces, with actual water gushing out of their mouths. Audiences are delighted to watch them spit; itap all tastefully, humorously done.
There is nothing quite so ambitious in Denver, but the show does manage to capture the spirit of Plensa’s work. He is all about demonstrating the different faces of humanity, the various cultures that exist around the world, and showing how the planetap various occupants can co-exist.
In the garden show, this mission is reduced to its most uncomplicated basics. It rarely goes beyond the superficial, with signage telling visitors again and again about how Plensa wants us to think of ourselves as a big, happy family.
“What’s beautiful is to be as one, while keeping our differences,” reads one of several quotes by Plensa installed on the gallery walls. Itap not so deep, but who can argue with the premise?
The work largely expresses that same message, repeatedly, though Plensa does have a graceful way of stating the obvious in his three-dimensional objects — and that makes many of the pieces gratifying to gaze upon.
Outdoors, in a small, grassy field, there is a series of four large-scale, sculptures shaped to look like women’s faces. The pieces, from 2019, were originally carved from oak trees and then cast in bronze.
While each has been assigned a name — Wilsis, Laura Asia, Carlota and Julia — their true personalities come out in the way Plensa has depicted them, with their eyes closed and in some apparent state of peaceful meditation. They feel quite human and fully relatable. It helps that the sculptures are technically very accomplished.
And because Plensa has retained characteristics of the trees themselves — you can still see bark and the grains of the wood — they feel right at home in their natural garden habitat. If the intent of these summer shows is to connect art to the earth, these objects are the highlight of the show.
Other works rely more heavily on easy sentiment. The centerpiece of the indoor display is 2013’s “Talking Continents,” which fills an entire room with hanging sculptures made from steel. The pieces are abstract but appear to show featureless human figures sitting atop globular, cloud-like shapes that float in the air. All of the sculptures are fashioned from connected letters, pulled from the various alphabets used in writing across the world’s cultures.
The piece is an optical delight, even if its message is oversimplified. “By removing signs of race, class or gender, Plensa seeks to highlight what we have in common rather than our differences,” reads the signage.
Itap a bit childlike, and not as interesting as nearly every exhibit the garden has programmed in its indoor galleries since they opened.
But itap possible to spin that in a positive way. The garden actually is a place for children, and this art plays nicely to a younger audience. Kids will get the messages that Plensa espouses as quickly as adults, but this work is an easy, comprehensible introduction to how artists work, using surprising materials in inventive ways to make viewers consider the world differently.
There is also something in this exhibit for adults. The level of craft is high in nearly every piece, and the ideas behind it are sincere if straightforward. But it feels like a good opportunity for parents and guardians to introduce their charges to the world of fine art in a place where they can relax — not in a hushed museum but in a lush garden.
IF YOU GO
“Jaume Plensa: A New Humanism” continues through Sept. 7 at the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St. More info: 720-865-3500 or botanicgardens.org.
