Art in the Parks

Description:

Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here is a multimedia, site-specific work based on the diary of a New York immigrant named Henry. It consists of a walk-in “observation cabinet” on the peninsula in Prospect Park, with copies of excerpts from Henry’s diary that are distributed to viewers for free. Henry’s diary tells the story of a man obsessed with the relationship between wonder and memory. The entries include descriptions of walks he took through the park, with references to Frederic Law Olmsted and his ideas about natural space in cities. In each cabinet is a song, written by the artist and based on diary entries.

Golberg, co-founder and Executive Director of Flux Factory, has been involved with many public projects, including Miracle on 43rd Street, a tour which led the public on adventures down 43rd Street, Queens, and Secret Spaces—part of the New Museum’s “Counter Culture” exhibition (2004). More recently, she created Romantic Moment on a Bench Looking Out at the Brooklyn Bridge: A Musical for the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Under the Bridge Festival.

Description:

On the morning of April 19, 1934, British gynecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson supposedly shot a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster. Because of his profession, the image was referred to as “The Surgeon’s Photo.” The image quickly became the most iconic and recognized photo of the elusive serpent. It was not until 1994 that it was revealed as a hoax. For this project, Cameron Gainer has staged a replica of the mythic serpent in the salt marsh off of Marine Park.

Cameron Gainer's work has most recently been seen in New York at Socrates Sculpture Park and at the French Cultural Institute in Turin, Italy. Gainer works in multiple mediums, including video, sculpture, and photography. He received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2003 and his BFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999. He lives and works in Ridgewood New York.

This project was made possible by Forest City Ratner Companies.

Description:

Artist Javier Tellez brings the ancient parable of the ‘Blind Men and the Elephant’ to life. In keeping with various versions of the tale, from a Buddhist fable to the 19th century poem by the writer John Godfrey Saxe, six visually impaired people will touch a different part of an elephant, just one part, and then describe the experience. Their responses illustrate how reality and understanding are shaped by perspective and the relativity of absolute truth.

Tellez’s action will take place on a closed set where it will be filmed and screened for the public at a later date. Games are Forbidden in the Labyrinth is the final project of Creative Time’s ‘Six Actions for New York City,’ co-curated by Mark Beasley and David Platzker.

A project of Creative Time.

Description:

In celebration of Storefront’s 25th anniversary, the Korean Architect Minsuk Cho has designed and built the Ring Dome Pavilion out of specially made plastic hoops. The Pavilion blurs the line between sculpture and architecture and acts both as a piece of art and as a stage for Performance Z-A.

Performance Z-A is a celebratory recreation of Storefront’s first public performance event, Performance A-Z, which took place in September 1982 at Storefront’s original location on Prince Street. All of Performance Z-A’s 26 events will take place in the Ring Dome Pavilion.

Presented by the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Description:

Ursachi's Hiding Place, a cylindrical bunker made from willow branches, is over 8-feet tall and 8-feet in diameter. The shelter has three "windows" with mirrors instead of glass.

"Because Hiding Place lacks a door and its windows are reflective shields, viewers can only imagine its interior," said Ursachi, "It is a receptacle for imagining and the yearning through which its simple iconic form may shift from bunker to refuge to nest-home. With this sculpture, I continue my investigation of the world of porous borders, vulnerable shelters, and mutating identities that is the 21st century experience of home."

Leonard Ursachi, a Brooklyn-based artist, left his native Romania in 1980 and has exhibited his work internationally. This is his third public art project with Parks & Recreation. Ursachi exhibited an earlier version of Hiding Place next to a 15th century stone fortress in Romania's Carpathian Mountains.

Description:
Fritz Koenig's The Sphere, a 45,000 pound sculpture made of steel and bronze, adorned the fountain at the World Trade Center's Tobin Plaza from 1971 to September 11, 2001. Bent and damaged, but still recognizable, the sculpture has been relocated to Battery Park, where it stands as a powerful temporary memorial commemorating the lives of those lost in the World Trade Center attack and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. On September 11, 2002, a dedication was held to officially recognize the artwork as an interim memorial and to light an eternal flame in memory of those lost.

The Sphere is on long-term loan from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Media Advisory

Description:
At Baruch Playground in Manhattan's Lower East Side, painters Adam Peachy and James Evans organized a team of volunteers to complete a mural of an underwater scene. It is a project of CITYarts. CITYarts is a nonprofit organization that connects children and youth with professional artists to create public art that addresses civic and social issues, impacts their lives, and transforms their communities. Since its founding in 1968, CITYarts has engaged nearly 100,000 New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds with over 500 professional artists in the process of designing and creating more than 260 murals, mosaics, and sculptures. Special emphasis is given to neighborhoods where access to and participation in the arts is limited.

Description:

Tony Smith’s (1912-1980) painted steel sculpture Free Ride is a study in planes and angles.  The geometric work, in some ways a simple black structure, becomes complex through its range of views.  Each vantage the sculpture is viewed from offers a different angle and a different shape to the form.  Smith’s work is not a sculpture for passive viewing; instead it invites engagement and thought, provoking a response in the viewer.

Tony Smith was trained and spent a good portion of his life as an architect.  His introduction to art was through painting, and he did not begin his career as a sculptor until he was 44, in 1956.  Smith was highly influenced by other minimalist, monumental sculptors, such as Barnett Newman, and first exhibited his sculptural work in 1964.  He was the first artist to exhibit work in New York City Parks with his 1967 show in Bryant Park.

On loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Description:
Jenny Holzer’s Bench is part of the artist’s most famous series of work, her "truisms." These seemingly simple aphoristic phrases reveal themselves, upon closer inspection, to be slyly subversive. Holzer has used a variety of media, including LED signs, plaques, stickers, and T-shirts, to bring her words and ideas into the public sphere. A grouping of the artist’s benches was shown by the Public Art Fund in a 1989 installation in Central Park’s Doris Freedman Plaza.

Description:
Robert Indiana’s bronze Love Wall is a reworking of one of the artist’s most iconic images. The "Love" image, the word "love" in all capitals, arranged in a square with a tilted "O," was originally developed by the artist for use as the Museum of Modern Art’s Christmas card in 1964 and shown as a sculpture in Central Park in 1969. Since its inception, various sculptural incarnations of the sculpture have been installed on Sixth Avenue in New York City, The Indianapolis Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, in the city of Taipei, Taiwan, as well as in Singapore, Bilbao, Spain, and Vancouver, Canada. There is also another version of the sculpture, spelling out "ahava" (“love” in Hebrew) on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Ahava was shown in Central Park’s Doris Freedman Plaza for a four-month period in 1978, prior to its installation at the Israel Museum.