Young artists Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe met on a New York City street in 1967. They were newcomers to town—short on cash, hopeful and passionate about art.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith—Flowers, Poetry, and Light opened last month at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in downtown Sarasota, Florida.

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe IV, New York City, 1969. Photo Courtesy Norman Seeff.
“Selby Gardens is thrilled to bring together this curated selection of nature-inspired works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith and present them for the first time ever in a botanical garden as part of our innovative Goldstein Exhibition Series,” said Jennifer Rominiecki, President & CEO of Selby Gardens. “Marking the first time that Selby Gardens has presented the work of a living artist and a contemporary photographer in the series, this exhibition creates an immersive experience for our visitors. Our gardens and floral displays will set the stage for a unique cultural encounter and exchange with two of the most iconic artists of our time.”
I visited “The Living Museum” a few days after the show’s opening in mid-February. The same week I read Smith’s National Book Award winning Just Kids. (All Smith quotes below are from Just Kids.) I haven’t stopped thinking about the exhibition, the book and Patti Smith’s music since. (Listen to Smith’s People Have the Power with U2.) The garden’s framed installations of potted living plants mimicked the seductive style that Mapplethorpe had used in the 1970s.

Nancy Bush photo
There were short queues of amateur photographers lined up to prove the point. A neon sign, flowers, a turntable, music, prose and poetry animated the walkaround.
Elsewhere, Mapplethorpe’s portraits and flowers, illustrating “lightness and dark” and “symmetry and asymmetry,” are displayed in the Museum of Botany and Arts. They oozed sexuality— naturally and artistically.
“I was attracted to Robert’s work because his visual vocabulary was akin to my poetic one, even if we seemed to be moving in different destinations. Robert would always tell me, ‘Nothing is finished until you see it.’”

Robert Mapplethorpe, Orchid, 1987.
Photogravure. 45 x 38-1/8 in. Courtesy of Graphicstudio, University of South Florida Collection and Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Hyacinth, 1987.
Photogravure. 45 x 38-1/8 in. Courtesy of Graphicstudio, University of South Florida Collection and Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Irises, 1987.
Photogravure. 45 x 38-1/8 in. Courtesy of Graphicstudio, University of South Florida Collection and Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
I became a fan of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens two years ago when Salvador Dali’s Gardens of the Mind turned me kid-like with joy while I was surrounded by orchids, bromeliads, bamboos, palms and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Selby is sufficiently, but not overwhelmingly, plant geeky. I am a novice with subtropical and tropical plants. The labeling was good. I scribbled notes as fast as I could. Selby’s plant palette, so different from temperate Kentucky’s, may not need to be left to a faraway dream for those in colder climates. (I have been studying with Marianne Willburn, my Garden Rant partner, and author of Tropical Plants and How to Love Them: Building a Relationship with Heat-Loving Plants When You Don’t Live in the Tropics.)

Installation image of the Poetry Walk, 2022. Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Photo credit: Cliff Roles Photography.
There was plenty to explore at Selby. I shifted between plants and art along the “Poetry Walk.” The downtown gardens are located on 15 acres, adjacent to Sarasota Bay. You could make a foot race out of it and walk end to end in ten minutes or saunter for hours and let the gardens and art come to you. I recommend sauntering.

Installation image of the studio in the Tropical Conservatory. Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Photo credit: Cliff Roles Photography.
My return visit felt like a homecoming. Time slowed to a crawl. Kids played and grownups retrieved phantom curiosity.
“We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed and he affectionately squeezed my hand. ‘Oh, take their picture,’ said the woman to the bemused husband. ‘I think they’re artists.’ ‘Oh, go on,’ he shrugged. ‘They’re just kids.’”
The choice of Mapplethorpe and Smith for a “living exhibition” was inspired. I imagine there were discussions about if and why Selby should couple Smith, an artist, poet, writer, activist and musician with Mapplethorpe, a multimedia artist and photographer who gained notoriety pushing the boundaries of propriety.

Nancy Bush photo
The show was indisputably suggestive of love and art, celebrating two talented artists who never ceased encouraging and loving each other. Their story was captured at Selby with a lens and the fruitfulness of flowers.
“Robert and I kept our vow. Neither would leave the other. I never saw him through the lens of sexuality. My picture of him remained intact. He was the artist of my life…”
High schoolers learn, or should learn, how pollen lands on a flower’s stigma and makes its way down the pollen tube where fertilization proceeds. The better students may even learn how to distinguish superior from inferior ovaries. Perhaps that’s enough, though a curriculum including biological hermaphroditism might run into headwinds with school boards.
“He (Robert) did not feel redeemed by the work he did. He did not seek redemption. He sought to see what others did not, the projection of his imagination… Robert and I kept our vow. Neither would leave the other. I never saw him through the lens of sexuality. My picture of him remained intact. He was the artist of my life…”
Public gardens have reached beyond the botanic world in recent years to lure guests and hook new gardeners and naturalists. Dale Chihuly’s glass works seem to be on a world tour. Visitors have poured through garden turnstiles from Kew in England to the high plains of the Denver Botanic Gardens and the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix to see his colorful art pieces. Chihuly’s Gardens and Glass exhibit next to the Seattle Space Needle is a spectacular force.
There have been a few, among the orthodox gardening community, who feebly argued that it was a betrayal to plant collections and gardens to mix art genres. This view, fortunately, faded faster than a night-blooming Cereus.

Nancy Bush photo
There are earlier examples of art and gardens.
Grottoes and trompe l’oeils are old school. The 16th century Italian Parco di Mostri (Park of the Monsters) with its sculpted war elephant, a frightening fish head, and an Edvard Munch-like Screampiece (with the inscription “All Reason Departs”) is provocative and bizarre. Salvador Dali drew inspiration at Parco di Mostri.
The 16,000-acre Bernheim Arboretum and Forest, across Highway 245 from the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, celebrated its 90th birthday in 2019 with an exhibition of “Forest Giants in a Giant Forest.” (And you thought Chihuly was BIG?) Bernheim has stayed true to a vision that includes a “combination of an arboretum and natural forested areas infused with arts to create a unique site to experience nature.”

Tabebuia tree in a frame, 2022. Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Cliff Roles Photography.
My short time at Selby was coming to an end. The gardens were closing. I wasn’t ready to leave.
One simple litmus test for any successful garden is the inexorable feeling of harmonizing joy. This doesn’t happen in every garden, or every time.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens passed the test again.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith: Flowers, Poetry, and Light will continue until June 26.
Mixing art, plants, gardens and discerning people is necessary and important.
Yes, indeed!
Anne said it beautifully, and succinctly. Thanks for the great post Allen. – MW
Thank you, Marianne.
Thanks for the tour !
You are welcome, Susan. My pleasure.
Thanks for the tour, now that I know about it, I want to go! I appreciate both artists & gardens. It will be anticipated.
Thanks, Michael. I hope you visit Selby. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Thanks for bringing that to a wider public. While the juxtaposition of art and gardens is nothing new, the art chosen more often matches or even far outdoes the color intensity of the plantings. Here, however, with Mapplethorpe’s studies of light and shadow, it took someone at Selby a deep understanding of the value of negative space and darkness in design to take that leap.
Thanks, Joseph. You hit the nail on the head. The show was magnificently curated.
Gardens are an art form so it makes sense to mix art genre’s within the beautiful backdrop of a garden. The exhibit is definitely though provoking which is a good thing these days.
Elaine, all distracting thoughts disappeared while I walked around Selby. And, yes, that was very good measure of the mixture between the exhibition and nature..
Wonderful post – thank you – I am an artist and love gardening, flowers and art of course – so when they all come together – that is the sweet spot!
“Sweet spot!” That’s exactly what this exhibition accomplished. Thank you, Kadira.
Thank you for sharing Selby with us, in your inimitable style!
Jenny, I couldn’t wait to share this story. Thank you.
Just saw this exhibit 2 weeks ago when I was in town. At first I found the interspersed artwork/photos/quotes/music somewhat jarring among the beautiful gardens and amazing views, but as I spent more time everything began to coalesce and interconnect. Really creative curating – a terrific exhibit in such a lovely setting. Kudos to you for bringing it to everyone’s attention!
Nancy, I understand what you mean about your initial impression. I had the same experience. We’d driven two hours to get there and it took a few minutes to unwind and find a groove. Carol Ockman, Curator-at-Large, and Selby’s very talented staff, pulled off another stunning exhibition.
Fascinating. Back in the 70s, probably 1978, I checked the album “Horses” out of the library, knowing nothing about it but looking for music for a women’s music radio show I helped with. “Horses” changed my life.
Thanks, Skyler. I’d listened to only a little of Smith’s music until my ears pricked up after I read her sweet 2017 New Yorker remembrance of Sam Shepard. My daughter just told me to listen to her 1976 album Ethiopia. My 15-year old granddaughter is a big Patti Smith fan, also.
Love this post and I have only been to Selby Gardens once but never forgot it. Beautiful place
Thank you, Georgeanne. Selby is, indeed, a magical garden. Full of love everywhere you turn.