New York Botanical Garden Reschedules Yayoi Kusama's Exhibition

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
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New York Botanical Garden Reschedules Yayoi Kusama's Exhibition

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters
Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama speaks to the media at her studio in Tokyo. Reuters

Art lovers have been offered a second chance to enjoy an exceptional exhibition devoted to the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) this year after it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the organizers, the exhibition which was first scheduled in 2020 will take place this year between April 10 and October 31.

The exhibition, which will be held in the heart of greenery in Bronx, will focus on Kusama's fondness of nature by displaying many of her works including drawings and sculptures.

The famous Japanese artist, 91, known for her colorful polka-dotted works, held many exhibitions around the world, and has become one of the most renowned painters in her generation. She even opened her own museum in Tokyo. In addition to housing large collections of living plants, the New York Botanical Garden host regular exhibitions for famous painters.

In 2018, visitors flocked into the garden to enjoy the impressive works of painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986).

In 2019, the garden hosted an exhibition by the Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994).



Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
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Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)

The Zurich Zoo’s beloved gorilla of more than 40 years has been put down after a long struggle with declining health, a zoo official in the Swiss city said this week.
N’Gola was 47 and one of the oldest male gorillas in European zoos, said Zurich Zoo director Severin Dressen.
He was a Western lowland gorilla — a subspecies of the great apes found in Africa and listed as critically endangered — and because of his mature age he was a silverback, after the gray hair on his back, The Associated Press reported.
N'Gola had suffered a host of health ailments, including arthritis, a heart condition and a tapeworm infection. He had been on painkillers for several years, eating less, and losing weight and muscle mass.
“It’s a hard decision to euthanize a silverback,” Dressen said.
"We’ve seen a crash in the wild over the span of three generations of 80% of the population," Dressen said about the decline of gorillas in the wild. Zoos can be helpful for research and public education about species protection, he added.
N'Gola was born in captivity and fathered 34 children. He was known for his sensitive side, taking “care of his harem, his group of females,” Dressen said.
In 2012, the female Nache in his harem suffered a burst appendix during advanced pregnancy, and both she and the unborn baby gorilla died, according to the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuricher Zeitung.
N’Gola spent weeks whimpering through the zoo enclosure looking for her, the report said.
Dressen also recalled a time when N'Gola looked after a baby gorilla in the group. "The mother wasn’t there, and he kind of — which is not a typical silverback behavior — took care of that baby.”
As for humans, N'Gola mostly ignored "other bipedal species on the other side of the glass” of his enclosure, Dressen said.