Winter Garden, an installation by Caitlyn Min-ji Au
February 8 – April 5, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION: Sunday, February 8, 2–5pm
Broodthaers Society of America
520 West 143rd Street
New York, NY 10031
Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays
1:00–6:00pm
The Broodthaers Society of America is pleased to present Winter Garden, an ambitious new site-specific installation by Caitlyn Min-ji Au. This will be Au's first solo show in New York.
Au's inspiration for Winter Garden has grown out of her knowledge of Un Jardin d'Hiver (1974), an installation originally conceived by Marcel Broodthaers, and the peculiar way that Broodthaers' artwork jibes with Au's childhood memory of her uncle's Seattle-based Chinese restaurant, it's lobby replete with exotic prints, fake rocks, a waterfall, and live koi. Au is interested in the fraught relationship between décor and criticality and how, when combined, the two aspects can operate as a kind of trap if one realm can't be discerned from the other.
Au's Winter Garden (2026) will consist of two asymmetrical environments designed for Atlas, the Broodthaers Society's resident turtle. On a site visit to the Broodthaers Society last summer, Au observed Atlas outdoors for long stretches of time at different angles of sunlight. Now that Atlas has moved inside for the winter—and thanks to Au—the turtle will have full reign of the Broodthaers Society's parlor floor through an array of spiral ramps, enclosed walkways, tiered structures, and 50-gallon tanks. The installation will feature the sound and circulation of water in consort with meticulously tracked paths of the sun. The rear garden and the apartment building across the street allow the sun to stream directly in through the gallery's south-facing windows and reflect into the space through its north-facing ones.
For the past five years, Au has been concerned with the delineation of space as an unequal power relationship between exterior and interior, real and virtual, revealed and masked. Her elemental forms have portals and video feeds that offer oblique views into their otherworldly interiors. The sinister uncertainty of what you're able to see inside any of Au's structures makes you aware that you might be trapped inside something too. Not only the gallery and its surveillance system but also the very skin that covers your body, just like the Moonlight Jade™ polyester fleece sewn snugly onto Au's forms.
Winter Garden ups the ante of Au's a posteriori aesthetics by introducing a live inhabitant to her sculptures. Where Au's previous work compelled viewers to delve into her forms and discern what they were up to, now just as much (if not more) scrutiny will be aimed back at us by Atlas the turtle, the show's demonstrably wise and wary protagonist. It's as if Au's new installation is proposing, by way of Schrödinger's Cat, that artworks have a skeptical view of us, too.
The Broodthaers Society will host an opening reception for the artist on Sunday, February 8, from 2–5pm . February 8 is also the last day you can see four excellent shows by Sam Contis, Rhea Dillon, Eric Mack, and Diane Simpson at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, so plan your uptown visit now.
Caitlyn Min-ji Au earned a BFA from the Glass Department at the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. From 2020-22 and 2023-24 she was a teaching assistant and fellow at the University of Chicago. She has recently shown work at Shanghai Seminary and W.I.H.S.H. projects, Chicago. She currently lives and works in Chicago.
OPENING RECEPTION: Sunday, February 8, 2–5pm
Broodthaers Society of America
520 West 143rd Street
New York, NY 10031
Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays
1:00–6:00pm
The Broodthaers Society of America is pleased to present Winter Garden, an ambitious new site-specific installation by Caitlyn Min-ji Au. This will be Au's first solo show in New York.
Au's inspiration for Winter Garden has grown out of her knowledge of Un Jardin d'Hiver (1974), an installation originally conceived by Marcel Broodthaers, and the peculiar way that Broodthaers' artwork jibes with Au's childhood memory of her uncle's Seattle-based Chinese restaurant, it's lobby replete with exotic prints, fake rocks, a waterfall, and live koi. Au is interested in the fraught relationship between décor and criticality and how, when combined, the two aspects can operate as a kind of trap if one realm can't be discerned from the other.
Au's Winter Garden (2026) will consist of two asymmetrical environments designed for Atlas, the Broodthaers Society's resident turtle. On a site visit to the Broodthaers Society last summer, Au observed Atlas outdoors for long stretches of time at different angles of sunlight. Now that Atlas has moved inside for the winter—and thanks to Au—the turtle will have full reign of the Broodthaers Society's parlor floor through an array of spiral ramps, enclosed walkways, tiered structures, and 50-gallon tanks. The installation will feature the sound and circulation of water in consort with meticulously tracked paths of the sun. The rear garden and the apartment building across the street allow the sun to stream directly in through the gallery's south-facing windows and reflect into the space through its north-facing ones.
For the past five years, Au has been concerned with the delineation of space as an unequal power relationship between exterior and interior, real and virtual, revealed and masked. Her elemental forms have portals and video feeds that offer oblique views into their otherworldly interiors. The sinister uncertainty of what you're able to see inside any of Au's structures makes you aware that you might be trapped inside something too. Not only the gallery and its surveillance system but also the very skin that covers your body, just like the Moonlight Jade™ polyester fleece sewn snugly onto Au's forms.
Winter Garden ups the ante of Au's a posteriori aesthetics by introducing a live inhabitant to her sculptures. Where Au's previous work compelled viewers to delve into her forms and discern what they were up to, now just as much (if not more) scrutiny will be aimed back at us by Atlas the turtle, the show's demonstrably wise and wary protagonist. It's as if Au's new installation is proposing, by way of Schrödinger's Cat, that artworks have a skeptical view of us, too.
The Broodthaers Society will host an opening reception for the artist on Sunday, February 8, from 2–5pm . February 8 is also the last day you can see four excellent shows by Sam Contis, Rhea Dillon, Eric Mack, and Diane Simpson at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, so plan your uptown visit now.
Caitlyn Min-ji Au earned a BFA from the Glass Department at the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. From 2020-22 and 2023-24 she was a teaching assistant and fellow at the University of Chicago. She has recently shown work at Shanghai Seminary and W.I.H.S.H. projects, Chicago. She currently lives and works in Chicago.