The Ashmolean's In Bloom exhibition might be better titled 'How we changed the plants' world.' Current art history has an obsession with ecologies, extinctions and extractions and the curators spend a great deal of time and energy banging on about exploitation, with annoyingly generalised hand-wringing. Plants have changed our world in a myriad of positive ways , yet there is virtually nothing here about medicinal plants, about how other cultures use plants, about how plants have always had deeply symbolic meanings, about how they have been used as dyes, or indeed their fundamental importance as a basic source of food. The emphasis instead is on our (Western/ European) negative impact, both on the natural world and on indigenous cultures. I am obviously not disputing that this is the case, nor am I saying it is not worthy of discussion, but the curators' narrow reluctance to concede anything else is frustrating and strangely at odds with both their chosen subtitle, and with many of the objects which are on display.
Because the first thing to acknowledge is that this is a strikingly beautiful exhibition. The opening room cocoons you within green walls, garlanded with painted flora; the large middle space is high, light and swathed in suspended draperies creating a rainforest-like canopy with a subtle soundscape of birds and water to match. You leave through large scale contemporary works of immersive colour as if you are in the world's most beautiful garden, although one seen, in Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's works, through the eyes of pollinating insects. I am not a fan of the current fashion for scent-scapes and the opportunity to stick your nose into various odours here seems like a crude gimmick in the midst of all these sumptuous visuals.
The objects themselves are also stunning. Excellent lighting elevates that most mundane of genres, still life, so the blooms have a tactile intensity and you can get nose-close and see water droplets, veining and insects. Rachel Ruysch's red poppies sing out of the darkness in a tumbling, characterful cascade: there is nothing still about this and it is full of life. There is a brief discussion about changing fashions in flower painting, but I wanted to know so much more, and it was, as so often the case with the labelling here, not followed through. Floral art does not begin and end in seventeenth century Holland; what about some eighteenth century French examples or indeed other nineteenth century artists? Fantin Latour appears only to illustrate the Victorians' rose-mania rather than to show shifting aesthetic attitudes to flowers. Alma Tadema's poster-girl feels like it was included because they wanted some more conventional paintings.
The oils are isolated examples, but the core of the exhibition are scientific and observational drawings. These are exquisite, always worth showcasing, but in themselves potentially repetitive. There is an odd disconnect between celebrating their draughtsmanship whilst at the same time using the drawings as illustrations of exploitation and colonialism. Again there is a tentative mention of changing tastes - the increasing inclusion of birds and wider ecologies - but too often the drawings are treated as nothing more than impeccable illustrations of a politicised point. More unusual and interesting are the three-dimensional models of plants used as teaching aids: they sit in (unfortunately indirect) dialogue with Anahita Norouzi's striking black irises in the final room.
Other objects have curiosity value: the Wardian chest for transporting specimens, vulanised rubber mourning jewellery, an opium pipe. We get snapshot stories which seem to leave too many gaps. Rubber trees, native to South America, were imported to South East Asia, yet this is not linked to other and continuingly destructive monocultures. Tea is discussed but sugar is ignored. A decision to take John Tradescant, whose collection effectively launched the Ashmolean, as a starting point means that previous plant movements (by the Romans, or tobacco from North America) are not mentioned.
Equally, and again here I take issue with the subtitle, this is an exhibition about men (and a few women) as much as about plants. We begin with portraits of the Tradescants and there are a succession of explorers, botanists, collectors and scientists who are name checked, from Carl Linnaeus strutting his stuff in Sami costume to the Duchess of Beaufort willfully imposing her global plant collection on the English countryside. This is a show which doesn't need people: plants have enough character of their own, from the papery fragility of centuries old flower-pressings to the full-blown blousy eroticism of orchids.
I set high standards for Ashmolean exhibitions and was hoping In Bloom would be a repeat of their wonderful Colour Revolution which was packed with interesting tit-bits and beautiful objects. There is beauty aplenty here, but In Bloom has the constrained artificiality of a parterre on which the curators have imposed their plan rather than the organic abundance of a cottage garden. One can effectively illustrate colonial exploitation and endangered nature without writing it into every label: indeed the final display allows contemporary artists to do both with far more elegance and bite than any of the previous pieces of text.
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