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AccessibilityArt in the Parks
Through collaborations with a diverse group of arts organizations and artists, Parks brings to the public both experimental and traditional art in many park locations. Please browse our list of current exhibits and our archives of past exhibits below. You can also see past grant opportunities or read more about the Art in the Parks Program.
Public Art Map and Guide
Find out which current exhibits are on display near you, and browse our permanent monument collection.
Search Current and Past Exhibits
Kota Ezawa, City of Nature
March 31, 2011 to May 15, 2011
Madison Square Park, Manhattan
Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.
Description:
Kota Ezawa is a German-born, San Fransisco-based video artist and illustrator who creates simple, graphic illustrations over film footage to produce short, witty narrative videos. City of Nature, Ezawa’s original video commission for Mad. Sq. Art, weaves together excerpts from popular films, ranging from Fitzcarraldo to Twin Peaks in which nature is the only character featured onscreen. These short clips are edited together to form what the artist calls a “video collage” or seamless montage, before being translated through freehand, computer assisted digital animation. The resulting animated video stands as a visually striking and original work containing subtle, but deliberate echoes of iconic cultural moments embedded in our collective unconscious. In much the same way that Madison Square Park presents a cultivated and aestheticized side of nature, wildlife and green space amidst the urban landscape of central Manhattan, City of Nature examines the ways in which popular culture presents aestheticized images of the natural work, “unnatural” visions of nature that embed themselves in our cultural memory and media landscape more deeply than we may consciously know.
This is a project of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
Kota Ezawa is a German-born, San Fransisco-based video artist and illustrator who creates simple, graphic illustrations over film footage to produce short, witty narrative videos. City of Nature, Ezawa’s original video commission for Mad. Sq. Art, weaves together excerpts from popular films, ranging from Fitzcarraldo to Twin Peaks in which nature is the only character featured onscreen. These short clips are edited together to form what the artist calls a “video collage” or seamless montage, before being translated through freehand, computer assisted digital animation. The resulting animated video stands as a visually striking and original work containing subtle, but deliberate echoes of iconic cultural moments embedded in our collective unconscious. In much the same way that Madison Square Park presents a cultivated and aestheticized side of nature, wildlife and green space amidst the urban landscape of central Manhattan, City of Nature examines the ways in which popular culture presents aestheticized images of the natural work, “unnatural” visions of nature that embed themselves in our cultural memory and media landscape more deeply than we may consciously know.
This is a project of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
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