Description

As part of an initiative to highlight its East Asian art holdings and engage Boston’s Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s upcoming exhibition,  Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden  in 2025, will pair traditional Chinese bird-and-flower paintings with contemporary artist Ming Fay’s immersive sculptures to examine gardens as cultural constructs central to community building, creative expression, and memory formation. These rarely seen historic works reveal gardens as carefully orchestrated depictions of the natural world, while Fay’s large-scale sculptures of fruits, nuts, and hybrid plants—shaped by his Chinese heritage and life in New York City’s Chinatown—underscore how urban gardens are products of human and cultural creation. This juxtaposition highlights the intersection between historical and contemporary artistic practices. Curator Gabrielle Niu will also develop a concurrent exhibition at the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown, featuring Fay’s work alongside local artists in a groundbreaking collaboration that strengthens connections between the Gardner and AAPI Bostonians. Luce grant will support these exhibitions and related public programming.