Art 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.

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Nick Hornby, Bird God Drone, Courtesy of the artist

Nick Hornby, Bird God Drone

November 1, 2013 to October 31, 2014
Clumber Corner, Brooklyn

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

In Hornby’s Bird God Drone, the outline of Michelangelo’s David – one of the most famous and widely reproduced sculptures in the world – has been extruded vertically over 12 feet to converge at a single point. In Bird God Drone, the silhouette of David’s conquering and classical Renaissance body lies horizontally, flush with the ground, and visible from above: by workers peering out of windows, tourists crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, birds, gods, and drones.

The sculpture is robotically carved from a synthetic composite to the accuracy of a fraction of a millimeter. The figurative perfection of Michelangelo’s sculpture is juxtaposed against the Platonic ideal of geometry.

Hornby has derived his outline, not from the original marble carving, but from a white plaster copy from the late 1800s located in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Here, in Brooklyn, Hornby’s sculpture is repositioned in another historical moment of belief in technological progress. It is no longer God and nature alone that view from above, but also drones and satellites, the components of our industrialization of space.

Accompanying this sculpture is a video of the work shot from above by a surveillance drone. The sculpture is designed specifically for this bird’s-eye view, inverting the ‘man on a plinth’ monument which is traditionally viewed from below. The video will be available on YouTube, accessible via smart-phones, and disseminated by social media, revealing Michelangelo’s outline dropped like a Google pin point (the hallmark of contemporary travel) in the urban landscape. www.birdgoddrone.com

This exhibition is presented by Two Trees Management Co.