FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE
FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE: LARGE−SCALE INSTALLATIONS BY REBECCA LOUISE LAW AND MIGUEL CHEVALIER INVITE VISITORS TO REFLECT ON THE BEAUTY AND DRAMA OF FLOWERS
LONDON, UK (January 2025) – As part of its major spring exhibition FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE supported by Cazenove Capital and Buccellati,Saatchi Gallery is honoured to present two large-scale bespoke installations inviting visitors to reflect on the beauty and drama of flowers.
Occupying an entire 2,000 sq ft gallery space, internationally renowned artist Rebecca Louise Law’s La Fleur Morte features over 100,000 dried flowers on trails of wire installed in formations for visitors to explore and engage in quiet moments of reflection.
“The place between life and death explored. Memorialising nature and our human connection to this earth through flowers.” – Rebecca Lousie Law
LONDON, UK (January 2025) – As part of its major spring exhibition FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE supported by Cazenove Capital and Buccellati, Saatchi Gallery is honoured to present two large-scale bespoke installations inviting visitors to reflect on the beauty and drama of flowers.
Occupying an entire 2,000 sq ft gallery space, internationally renowned artist Rebecca Louise Law’s La Fleur Morte features over 100,000 dried flowers on trails of wire installed in formations for visitors to explore and engage in quiet moments of reflection.
“The place between life and death explored. Memorialising nature and our human connection to this earth through flowers.” – Rebecca Lousie Law
Law is known for creating immersive installations with natural materials. Preserved flowers have become the signature of her most recognised works. Individually sewn and suspended, viewers are often invited to navigate through them, discovering the diverse forms, colours and textures of each specimen. These colossal works are intentionally equivocal and while themes of symbolism, consumerism, sustainability and life cycles often present themselves, the artworks also provide a harmonious place for rest and contemplation.
On La Fleur Morte, Law says, “Using the dead flower as my sculptural material has enabled me to explore our capitalist culture and our insatiable appetite for more. I began collecting flowers in 2003 with waste flowers from the commercial flower industry. As well as this resource, many flowers in my archive have been donated from gardens all over the world and today I grow my own. I never throw any flowers away and I collect the floral dust that falls while I install. Valuing what the earth provides us, is paramount in my works ethos.”
The installation includes more than 40 varieties of flowers and plants, including Achillea, Camomile, Carnation, Chrysanthemum, Daisy, Dahlia, Hibiscus, Hydrangea, Lavender, Lily, Nigella, Poppy, Rose and Wheat.
Recognising her craft as an opportunity to bring people together, Law is working with Saatchi Gallery to invite various communities to participate in the creation of this installation, including groups the Gallery supports through its charitable mission. In a series of workshops, participants will assemble the dried flowers onto wires, allowing them to create a treasured piece of the exhibition. All those involved will be invited to celebrate and contemplate the final work upon its completion.
On the importance of these workshops, she comments, “The making of this artwork has involved local community groups who will continue to be connected to the gallery and all other communities who are involved with my work all over the world. The feeling that we are part of something greater than ourselves is at the very heart of my practice.”
Coinciding with Law’s piece in another entire gallery space, pioneering French artist Miguel Chevalier will install Extra Natural, a generative and interactive artwork featuring virtual flowers and plants projected over 70 square metres and which interact with the movement of visitors within the space.
Extra Natural is an immersive virtual garden which reimagines nature through digital art. Featuring a range of imaginary, stylized plants with vibrant colours and fluid movements, the garden evolves endlessly using generative algorithms that simulate growth, blooming, and transformation. Visitors interact with the garden as it responds to their presence, creating a dynamic experience where flowers bend, petals fall, and plants come to life in a continuous cycle. Extra-Natural explores the relationship between nature and technology, inviting viewers to reflect on the potential of genetic manipulation and the creation of artificial environments that promote a new kind of symbiosis between humans and nature.
An early pioneer of digital art, Chevalier began considering hybrid, generative and interactive images from the 1980s, creating projects that incorporated these elements projected at large scale on LED or LCD screen; as well as 3D printed sculptures and laser cut, holographic images. He has since produced exhibitions and installations for museums, galleries and public spaces around the world. Chevalier’s digital works are in constant metamorphosis, plunging us into a magical, poetic and very contemporary universe.
Chevalier says, “Such reflections concern new forms of life and their interaction with the contemporary environment, in which nature sometimes seems distant and inaccessible. In a world where the relationship between man and nature is often remote, an idealised representation of nature can offer a refuge, an oasis of tranquillity and beauty.”
Flowers – Flora In Contemporary Art & Culture presents over 500 unique artworks and objects across two floors and nine major gallery spaces to showcase the ongoing influence of flowers on creativity and human expression. The project partner for a presentation of photographic works from Flora Imaginaria, curated by Danaé Panchaud and William Ewing, is the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP). The exhibition is supported by Cazenove Capital and Buccellati.
Saatchi Gallery Lates will take place on 14 February, 28 February, 14 March and further dates to be announced and will feature drawing classes, workshops and creative activations.
Featured artists include:
Cristina Alcantara, Pedro Almodóvar, Nobuyoshi Araki, Nick Archer, Gillian Ayres, Jessica Backhaus, Mandy Barker, Brendan Barry, Susan Beech, Valérie Belin, Andy Bettles, Elizabeth Blackadder, John Blakemore, Jean Baptiste Bosschaert, Faye Bridgwater, Orlanda Broom, Buccellati, Olga Cafiero, Ann Carrington, Rob & Nick Carter, Miguel Chevalier, Christo, Philip Colbert, Lottie Cole, Stephanie Comilang, Sharon Core, Michael Craig-Martin, Reuben Dangoor, Lia Darjes, William Darrell, Tom de Houwer, Richard de Tscharner, Elspeth Diederix, Jim Dine, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Ron van Dongen, Xuebing Du, Elaine Duigenan, Pamela Ellis Hawkes, Ruud van Empel, Joanna Epstein, Mary Fedden, Robert Frank, Anne von Freyburg, Erwan Frotin, Adam Fuss, Matthieu Gafsou, Grace Gillespie, Sky Glabush, Daniel Gordon, Maro Gorky, Roberto Greco, Jo Grogan, Anna Halm Schudel, Joanna Ham, Rose Electra Harris, Dan Hays, George Henry, Realf Heygate, Damien Hirst, Aimée Hoving, Gary Hume, Florence Hutchings, Mila Ilingina, Yinka Ilori, Michelle Jung, Nadav Kander, Heath Kane, Sandra Kantanen, Alex Katz, Rob Kesseler, Kior Ko, Jan Sebastian Koch, Irene Küng, Wole Lagunju, Caroline Larsen, Rebecca Louise Law, David Lebe, Laura Letinsky, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Brigitte Lustenberger, Mari Mahr, Martin Maloney, Ann Mandelbaum, Tony Matelli, Margaret Mellis, Anastasija Michailova, Andrew Millar, Banita Mistry, Carmen Mitrotta, Abelardo Morell, William Morris, Alphonse Mucha, Vik Muniz, Galina Munroe, Takashi Murakami, Winifred Nicholson, Jesse Pollock, Janet Pulcho, Stormy Pyeatte, Marc Quinn, Dan Rawlings, Marcel Rickli, Almudena Romero, Paul Rousteau, Andrew Salgado, Frederick Sander, Viviane Sassen, Thirza Schaap, Schiaprelli, Helene Schmitz, Martin Schoeller, Megan Seiter, Amy Shelton, Ann Shelton, David Shrigley, Niki Simpson, Paul Anthony Smith, Soldier, Rudolf Steiner, Holly Stevenson, Florent Stosskopf, Daniel The Gardener, Rebecca Thomas, Mimei Thompson, Miriam Tölke, VOYDER, Robert Walker, Tim Walker, Tom Wesselmann, Jo Whaley, Jess Wilson, Emma Witter, Kasia Wozniak, Nadirah Zakariya, Christina Zimpel, Victoria Zschommler, Andrew Zuckerman
Curatorial project partners include:
Chelsea Physic Garden, Cinema Poster Gallery, The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP), Marimekko, Mary Quant Limited, Sanderson Design Group including Morris & Co., William Morris Gallery
Dates
Open to the public: 12 February – 5 May 2025
Saatchi Lates: 14 February, 28 February, 14 March
Spaces
FLOWERS will occupy both the first and second floors of the Gallery.
Admission
This is a ticketed exhibition. Walk-ins are welcome but pre-booking is advised. Tickets can be booked online from 10 December at saatchigallery.com. Tickets start at £12.
Social Media
Join the discussion about the exhibition online with #SaatchiGalleryFlowers
Instagram: @saatchi_gallery TikTok, X: @saatchi_gallery Facebook: @saatchigalleryofficial
School visits & Community groups
With the generous support of all our patrons, for each major exhibition, there are opportunities for students and community groups to engage in creative projects and workshops. For more details, visit www.saatchigallery.com/learning or call +44 (0) 20 7811 3087.
About Saatchi Gallery
Since 1985, Saatchi Gallery has provided an innovative platform for contemporary art. Exhibitions have presented works by largely unseen young artists, or by international artists whose work has been rarely or never exhibited in the UK. This approach has made the Gallery one of the most recognised names in contemporary art. Since moving to its current 70,000 square feet space in the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, London, the Gallery has welcomed over 10 million visitors. The Gallery hosts thousands of school visits annually and has over 6 million followers on social media. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity, beginning a new chapter in its history.
Registered Charity Number: 1182328 | Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY
About Cazenove Capital
Cazenove Capital is a leading provider of personalised wealth management services to ultra- high-net-worth and high-net-worth clients, family offices and trusts. As well as discretionary and advisory investment services, we offer wider wealth management services such as advice on philanthropy and impact investment, wealth planning, cash management, deposit-taking and lending.
As the UK’s largest manager of charitable assets, our charity team provides a range of specialised services to a wide range of endowments, foundations and other charity clients. We also work in partnership with financial advisers to provide discretionary fund management to their clients.
Cazenove Capital is a subsidiary of Schroders plc, a major FTSE 100 company. The Schroder family still own a significant percentage of the company, having founded it over 200 years ago. This enables us to take a long-term view and to continue investing in our people, systems and services to deliver the high standards that we set of ourselves and that our clients expect of us.
For more information on our ultra-high and high-net-worth business in the UK, please visit cazenovecapital.com.
About Buccellati
Buccellati is a renowned high-jewelry and silverware Maison, admired for its craftmanship and the uniqueness of its creations. Distinctive is the use of rare stones with extraordinary colors, mixed with white and yellow gold, all nicely carved like laces. Today, the Buccellati jewels stand out for their design and for the techniques used to create them, such as the hand-engraving technique, dating back to the ancient goldsmithing traditions of the Italian “bottega” during the Renaissance times. The shapes of the collections are all inspired the historical archive drawings and by the very first creations of the founder, Mario Buccellati. Today, the Maison is 100% owned by Richemont, but the Buccellati family is still present in the company with top level managerial functions. Buccellati boutiques are present in the most important cities and in the most prestigious Malls of the world.
About The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography
An independent non-profit organization, The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP) produces unique and influential museum-quality photography exhibitions and circulates them around the world. The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (Minneapolis/Paris/Lausanne) aims to enlighten, delight, and inspire people around the world through the presentation of photography exhibitions, publications, related online content, symposia, lectures, and other forms of educational events and materials. Founded in 2003, FEP is based in Minneapolis, a city with a vibrant tradition of support for the arts. The organization has achieved substantial results in its first two decades, with shows travelling to 35 countries on 4 continents, and with catalogues produced in many different languages.
