of light to help mark Golden Gate Park’s 150th
Trees and bushes have an undeniable appeal even in their natural state, but an art installation coming to Golden Gate Park’s Peacock Meadow in December plans to render them in a sculptural landscape of electrical illumination.
“Entwined,” designed to celebrate the park’s 150th anniversary this year, is the creation of San Francisco artist Charles Gadeken. It will consist of three large sculpted trees, creating illuminated canopies as large as 30 feet, surrounded by an array of flowering bushes made of 2,000 LED lights.
The installation — a publicprivate collaboration between the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and the nonprofit San Francisco Parks Alliance — is scheduled to open Dec. 1 and run through the end of February, with a possible extension to June 1.
“I’ve lived in San Francisco for nearly 40 years, and it’s always been a dream of mine to put a sculpture in Golden Gate Park,” Gadeken told The Chronicle in a phone interview.
“The idea was to make these sculp
tural objects that are reminiscent of the greatest of all designers — which is nature — but transformed by technology. This will be a postnature forest, trees for the moon.”
The installation is expected to include a range of lighting effects that evoke raindrops, lightning and thunderstorms, wind blowing through the grass, and ripples on a pond.
Funding for the installation came from private donations to the Park Alliance’s Golden Gate Park 150 campaign, organizers said, not from city coffers.
“As the days get darker, this dazzling installation will light the way for park lovers to experience Golden Gate Park in a new and creative way as we close out its 150th Anniversary,” San Francisco Recreation and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg said in a statement. “A twilight stroll through the park’s east will be truly magical this winter.”
Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicle’s music critic. Email: jkosman@ sfchronicle. com Twitter: @ JoshuaKosman