Janaina Tschape - Melantropics

In a curious botanical milieu peopled with costumed creatures born from myths and folktales, Janaina Tschape makes photographs and video. Melantropics, her first American monograph, documents recent works staged in the 79-acre Saint Louis Botanical Garden, a National Historic Landmark and one of the country's oldest botanical institutions, and in Rio de Janeiro's John Tyndale-designed Parque Lage. The linked projects incorporate the same costumes and props, leaving viewers to decipher their artificially luxuriant locales. Photographed and filmed during the spring, their subjects serve as transitory blooms and foliage, surrogates for those that have withered and those yet to blossom. Tsachape, born in Germany and living in Brooklyn, has shown her work at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and on the flashing screens of Times Square, through Creative Times's 59th Minute program.