Ben Thorp Brown: Cura's Garden

Expanding on the Roman myth of Cura, Brown's theatrical assortment of flora, fog, sculpture and sound coheres into a lush sensorial experience

Published with Roma Publications and Kunsthal Gent.

In 2023, American artist Ben Thorp Brown (born 1983) opened Cura's Garden, a long-term, immersive exhibition set in the medieval garden of Kunsthal Gent, a former Carmelite monastery. Expanding on the Roman myth of Cura, the project brings together a theatrical assortment of trees and other flora, fog, sculpture and sound--elements that cohere into a dense, indeterminate sensorial experience. This richly illustrated volume, organized around the seasons, features vivid documentation across two years of the garden's young life alongside linocut botanical prints by the artist's mother, Cary Thorp Brown.
New essays by Laura McLean-Ferris, Laurie Cluitmans and Robert Wiesenberger explore the conceptual, formal, art historical and affective valences of Cura's Garden, and a roundtable conversation between Brown and Laura Herman, Jan Minne and Valentijn Goethals considers the history and development of the project, from the artist's 2019 film Cura, a precursor to the garden, through present concerns around the maintenance and unfolding nature of this site-specific work.