April 28 marks the opening of the roof garden at New York’s Museum of Metropolitan Art. As is the case every summer, the space will play host to a specially-commissioned, site-specific artwork, this time from American artist Dan Graham and Swiss landscape architect Günther Vogt (see “Dan Graham Gets Metropolitan Museum Rooftop Commission for 2014“).
The collaboration, titled Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout, is a series of curved sculptures of steel and two-way mirrors set amid ivy hedgerows. The work offers an unsettlingly modern and urban take on the traditional garden mazes that were popular in Northern Europe during the 18th century. Alternately transparent and reflective, the sculptures are reminiscent of corporate skyscrapers. Such sculptural environments have been a trademark of Graham’s artistic practice since the 1970s.
In a press release, Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director and CEO, praised Graham’s work for challenging people “to think in new and thought-provoking ways about the streets and cities they traverse every day,” describing the artists’ re-imagining of the institution’s roof as “a picturesque landscape that is at once unexpected and familiar.”
The roof garden will be open, weather permitting, through November 2, with a martini bar on Friday and Saturday evenings between 5:30–8:30.