NYBG announces a new ‘Alice in Wonderland’ -themed exhibit
New Yorkers have a bit of a love affair with Lewis Carroll’s iconic 1865 children’s novel: we got an immersive Alice in Wonderland experience last fall, an Alice in Wonderland-inspired pop-up wine bar that ran through this spring and, of course, the famous
and, of course, there’s the famous, bronze Alice in Wonderland statue that has stood in Central Park since 1959. Now the New York Botanical Garden is getting in on the Mad Hatter fun with a new, garden-wide exhibition for 2024 entitled “Wonderland: Curious Nature.”
On view from Saturday, May 18 through Sunday, October 27, 2024, the enchanting display will “feature horticultural and contemporary art installations that evoke the spirit of exploration and uncanny nature of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” per the NYBG.
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Inspired by the classic tale and its 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the immersive exhibition will be a true sensory adventure, with visitors able to explore a variety of mind-bending experiences set throughout the botanical garden’s iconic glasshouse, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building and across its stunning 250-acre grounds. The installations will be fittingly trippy, including works that play with scale and perspective, with no shrinking “Drink Me” potion necessary.
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Naturally, you can’t have Alice in Wonderland without roses and you’ll find plenty of the beautiful blooms in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. (Just don’t let the Queen see those white ones!) And to cap it all off, you can have a tea party of your own, mad or otherwise, at the property’s Hudson Garden Grill. (Whimsical food pop-ups will also be sprinkled around the grounds to sate your appetite.)
Organized by curator and scholar Jennifer R. Gross, the lineup of featured artists showcased in the presentation will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets for the “Wonderland: Curious Nature” exhibition go on sale to the public on Thursday, February 1, 2024, but you can sign up for ticket alerts now at the NYBG website so you don’t miss out on the magical event.