BROWN, Ben Thorpe
Cura's Garden

In 2023, American artist Ben Thorp Brown 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, 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. With images by Michiel de Cleene and Ben Thorp Brown. Design: Valentijn Goethals. 

[publisher's note]

Published by ROMA Publications, 2026
Monographs