LongHouse Reserve Opens 28th Season With ‘Rites Of Spring’ On Saturday

The sculpture gardens at East Hampton’s LongHouse Reserve will open for their 28th season with “Rites of Spring” on Saturday, April 27, from 1 to 5 p.m.

The gardens will be filled with displays of flowering trees and showy daffodils that over 30 years have multiplied by hundreds of thousands. “The daffodils are now augmented with great swaths of tulips and other spring blooms making this a season not to be missed,” according to LongHouse. New art has been installed for the 2019 season and includes works by Wendell Castle, Jun Kaneko, Joseph Walsh, Young Jae Lee, and Will Ryman.

Mr. Ryman, who is making his LongHouse debut, has created a towering, site-specific “Rose” installation on the LongHouse Pyramid Plateau. Stemming from the artist’s exhibition “The Roses, 2011” on Park Avenue in New York City is his monochrome red rose “LongHouse 6, 2019.” LongHouse says: “This romanticized symbol of beauty and perfection is at odds with the sculpture’s exaggerated size, handworked quality, and the missing petals it has shed around its base. This duality, frequently at stake in Ryman’s work, reveals the imperfect and temporary nature of all things.”

Mr. Kaneko’s 1996 work “Dango,” a gift to LongHouse from the Judith and Gerson Leiber Foundation, is set in the Edward Albee Amphitheater. A bronze bench by Mr. Castle invites visitors to relax in the gardens.

Rites of Spring will also have the debut of “Vessels,” an exhibition of ceramics by noted artist Ms. Lee. Mr. Walsh, a furniture designer from Cork, Ireland, has created a site-specific wall shelf for LongHouse, “Enignum Shelf XXXVI” that highlights curvilinear forms.

Admission to Rites of Spring is $15, or free for members. This season’s artwork will remain on view through October 5.