Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden / Yu-Wen Wu: Reigning Beauty

Imagination takes root at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in a suite of exhibitions that explore gardens as sites of connection, creativity, and memory, on view through September 21, 2025.

In Hostetter Gallery, Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden celebrates the life and work of Ming Fay (1943–2025), a multimedia artist best known for his immersive sculptural gardens populated with oversized fruits, seeds, and imagined hybrid plants. It is the first major exhibition of the New York-based artist’s work in Boston and New England and the most comprehensive presentation anywhere to date.

Drawing upon Chinese and American cultural references, Fay’s playful multimedia works invite viewers’ personal experiences to generate unique understandings of gardens. The exhibition features more than 100 objects, including 80 of Fay’s larger-than-life botanical sculptures, a site-specific hanging installation, notebook sketches, preparatory drawings and watercolors, and pages from zines that he published over the years. Various seeds, pods, and shells from Fay’s collection of found natural materials, which served as sources of inspiration for his artwork, are on display alongside a video interview with Parker Fay, Director of the Ming Fay Studio and son of the artist.

A companion exhibition, Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures, at Pao Arts Center in Boston’s Chinatown, will explore gardens through the art of Ming Fay, Mel Taing, and Yu-Wen Wu from July 18–October 10, 2025.

A newly-commissioned work by Gardner Artist-in-Residence Yu-Wen Wu is displayed on the Museum’s Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade and is featured as part of this summer’s inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial 2025. A reflection on the vulnerability of the natural world, Reigning Beauty is composed of a collage of wind-swept blossoms—photographs of flowers taken by Wu in the Museum’s Courtyard and greenhouses.

Also on view is a historic show in Fenway Gallery, Flowers for Isabella, which features paintings and archival photos from the Museum’s collection.

“Gardening and horticulture were central to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s identity and her concept of art and beauty,” explains Peggy Fogelman, Norma Jean Calderwood Director. “The Gardner is celebrating gardens throughout the Museum and beyond our walls. Vibrant botanical sculptures by Ming Fay and thought-provoking contemporary works expand our notion of what gardens can mean to anyone who takes the time to marvel at their simplicity and magnificence.”

The exhibitions are accompanied by Small Conversation, a sound installation by Artist-in-Residence Lee Mingwei in the Museum’s central Courtyard garden. Small Conversation blurs the boundaries of artifice and nature by introducing a subtle soundscape of crickets, cicadas, and frogs—all produced by Lee’s own voice. This multi-channel installation (originally created for the Gardner Museum in 2017 and reinstalled in conjunction with these summer exhibitions), aims to heighten our awareness of our changing environments.

Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden and Yu-Wen Wu: Reigning Beauty, 2025 are supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Amy and David Abrams, the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, Wagner Foundation, the Barbara Lee Program Fund, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Fredericka and Howard Stevenson, and Yuchun and Agustina Lee.

Flowers for Isabella is supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Amy and David Abrams, the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, Wagner Foundation, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Fredericka and Howard Stevenson, Yuchun and Agustina Lee, and by an endowment grant from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Yu-Wen Wu: Reigning Beauty, 2025 is featured as part of the Boston Public Art Triennial 2025.

The Artist-in-Residence program is supported in part by Lizbeth and George Krupp and directed by Pieranna Cavalchini, Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art. Funding is also provided for site-specific installations of new work on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade on Evans Way.

The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Saturday Open Studios: July 19–September 20, 2025, 1–4pm—On Saturdays, create art inspired by gardens in an activity designed by Rayna Lo.

Drawing Inspiration: Live Sketching with Yuko Okabe: July 31 and August 21, 6–8pm—Draw as you immerse yourself in Ming Fay's garden. Led by artist Yuko Okabe.

Free First Thursday—August: August 7, 2025—Enjoy the art of Ming Fay, music, and Korean brush painting with Minhee Kim.

What Is a Garden: Connection, Memory, and Creativity: August 14, 2025, 6–8pm—Explore how green spaces connect us to place, collective memory, and creativity. Hosted at Pao Arts Center.

Learn more about summer exhibitions at the Gardner Museum.

For press inquiries, please email Dawn Griffin, dgriffin@isgm.org or press@isgm.org.
Other inquiries: information@isgm.org