Art to eat - installation art, Meg Webster, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas

Meg Webster's present to view at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston last fail included 11 works from the past decade. Singular geometric plastic arts made from natural materials, of that kind as Cone of Salt (1988) and the earthen Mother knoll (1990), were presented along with Circuit: Offerings, a tall made of wood table strewn with fruits, nut and vegetables, which museum visitors were invited tc use up First shown in 1986, Circuit: Offerings was installed at CAM to establish a transition from indoors to outdoors, where Webster's Kitchen Garden was and still is planted. While the title would prompt that its purpose is functional, Kitchen Garden, which contains above 100 species of mostly native Texas plants, is equally specimen garden (such as individual would encounter at a botanical center) and ecological (as oppos to esthetic) earthwork. Not unlike dale (1988), dismantled after several years at the Walker Art Center's plastic art park, Kitchen Garden has been the make subordinate of some controversy. Although neither dale nor Kitchen Garden was intended to be permanent, the decision to pull down the Minneapolis garden because of structural and animal vexed questions sparked public support for the work. In Houston, it is the unmanicured, haphazard appearance of Kitchen Garden that has angered a certain quantity of in the community.

Planted upon the sloping, right-triangular plot of land in forehead of the museum, Kitchen Garden overspreads 4,000 square feet. Straw-covered pathways wind end the garden, following the course of a sinuous stream of water and ending here and there in slightly elevated promontories. The stream is lined with admittedly unsightly black rubber, now bleached to a dirty gray through the sun so that it is les of an industrial intrusion than it was through every part of the winter. The lining is held in place with earth and stones and is mounded over the sides of the cut A recirculating pump and expos PVC pipe are suppos to hold fast the water coursing regularly end the stream. At times, however, stagnant pond s have formed at the lowest horizontal of the garden near the sidewalk. Edibles, including fruit tree herbs and vegetables, and ornamentals similar as roses and various scaly buds are planted to keep the garden in continuous production until its scheduled demise in the spring of 1994

Quickly planted just before the show's opening in November 1992 the garden was openly criticized for its scraggly appearance. by the agency of January, there were a scarcely any daffodils and hyacinths scattered among short, bare tree Parsley and Chinese cabbage were coming up and herbs were beginning to do well, on the contrary the cauliflower was stunted. During the winter and early spring, a certain number of plants died, others went to se before harvest and many of the vegetables succumbed to a late be congealed After casual attention by the museum staff during an especially rainy spring, the garden began to take shape in May. Among the blooming plants were white and purple butterfly bushes, gold-colored lantana and daisylike green organ of sights and a few pale rose A peach tree bore fruit. The heated dry Texas weather, which hindrances even the best-tended gardens, l to the harvesting of greatest in quantity of the vegetables by midsummer, leaving primarily herbs and a certain quantity of taller trees, plus some prolific little fish that were lately added to the stream. The staff has watered sparingly. Kitchen Garden remains spotty

Although the vegetables are planted nearest the water and the rosebushes nearest the road there's little apparent logic to the planting, which has a jumbl capricious result The look of the accidental might exhibit a certain attractive wildness, on the contrary even this is thwarted by means of the tidy rows of broccoli and cabbage. The garden is best experienced upon foot--up close---where vision gives way to touch and scent Seen from the street, the Kitchen Garden is far from picturesque. not many gardeners can abide the crumpl rubber lining of the stream, which a landscape architect passing the museum one time offered to revise. The proffer was turned down. Webster's intention's I was told through the curator, was not to make a completed garden.

Perhaps the greatest in quantity intriguing aspect of Kitchen Garden is the discrepancy between Webster's utopian vision and the actuality of the garden. Webster's prelection at the opening of her exhibition, not awayed Kitchen Garden as an interactive, community-involvement throw out The edible plants, fruits and herbs are intended to be harvested and consum through whoever wants or needs them. The implication is, of course, that the craving or homeless are the ideal beneficiaries of this piece. Unfortunately, the museum's location at a busy intersection in an upscale neighborhood shut outs just those visitors, while the residents of the area have plenitude of room in their have a title to backyards for gardens if they want them. gymnasium children are brought through the garden upon field trips, but the tending and harvesting is left to the museum staff. single particular security guard with a penchant for gardening is many times seen working in the garden or resting there upon his break. A staff member told me that greatest in quantity people are hesitant to pick the subsistence which can only mean that the museum adjoining matter that establishes the artistic status of Kitchen Garden and enforces a "don't touch" mentality is stronger than the ideology of a community garden. All of this, however, does not undercut the validity of the work. While not beautiful or bountiful, the garden has a life of its own--growing, blooming, wilting and dying. And its nothing else but existence is .provocative, inhabiting as it does more [i]or[/i] less undefined region between a small-scale farm and an inspired work of art.