“Implant”

Roman Signer, Leiter/Ladder

Photograph: Courtesy UBS Gallery and the Horticultural Society of New York

If the idea behind “Implant” is simply to illustrate author Michael Pollan’s celebrated “plant’s-eye view” of the world in The Botany of Desire, then it succeeds. Organizer Jodie Vicenta Jacobson’s (curator of the Horticultural Society) choice of pieces like Carol Woodin’s botanical watercolors or Jim Sams’s miniature floral woodcarvings works best with Pollan’s idea of people and nature existing in a symbiotic relationship.

However, the pairing of Conceptual pieces by “major” artists with the less-known or self-taught—juxtaposing, as it were, abundant didactics with unironic virtuosity—ends up making this show of 45 artists seem unwieldy. Similarly, though the exhibit draws some complex parallels between the creative process and fecundity in nature, the inclusion of arbitrary one-liner pieces too often fosters “a constellation of references and ‘forced collaborations,’ ” as the label accompanying Carol Bove’s Tantra Yoga aptly puts it.

Still, the show has its moments: Katie Holten’s pair of uprooted trees, made from black gaffer tape, cascades from the ceiling, while Carsten Höller’s Suicide Gerbera Daisy Plant sits pathetically on the floor, its wilting head held up by a thin red thread. Both use spatial dynamics to create a reciprocal relationship with the viewer while emoting a real sense of our contingent and increasingly precarious relationship to nature. It is in these all-too-rare moments that “Implant” seems finally to take root.