When you’ve got a formula that works, why not take it on the road. That’s what Sotheby’s has done with its wildly popular outdoor sculpture shows. The auction house combines a corporately-sponsored public display of a sculptor’s work with a selling exhibition in a prominent semi-public space in places like Isleworth, Florida or England’s storied Chatsworth. Now they’re trying the same thing in Singapore:

The show will feature 16 monumental works by the award-winning international artist Zadok Ben-David in the magnificent setting of Singapore Botanic Gardens. The exhibition, which will run from 23 October 2012 to 31 January 2013, has been organised with the support of the National Parks Board and Singapore Tourism Board.

Yemeni-born, raised in Israel and now London-based, Zadok Ben-David has a well established reputation in Asia.  In 2007, he was the subject of a solo exhibition at Guangdong Art Museum in China and in 2008 he was commissioned to create a landmark sculpture for the Beijing Olympics. Ben-David’s celebrated Blackfield installation, featuring a forest of 20,000 tiny botanical sculptures, has been on a world touring exhibition since its creation in 2008 and has elicited a rapturous response in every location.

For the exhibition at Singapore Botanic Gardens this autumn, Ben-David has created 12 new works, drawn from themes from some of his most powerful sculpture series.  Figures, trees and butterflies are entwined in works which challenge our perceptions of reality.  Each is a unique creation made of Corten (or “weathering”) steel.