Art in the Parks

Description:

Christian Jankowski's Living Sculptures consists of three bronze sculptures inspired by the tradition of professional street performers who pose motionless as historical or fantastical figures for spectators to photograph. Specifically these works draw inspiration from three street performers Jankowski observed and selected from a public thoroughfare in Barcelona, who regularly present themselves as the likenesses of a Roman legionnaire who refers to himself as “Caesar,” the revolutionary leader Che Guevara, and an enigmatic woman inspired by a figure known as “The Anthropomorphic Cabinet Woman,” created by artist Salvador Dali.

Jankowski's sculptures are, in essence, statues of people performing as statues. Representing modern day figures, both real and imagined, they are exceptionally life–like, though solid bronze in their composition. Their human scale and figurative representation beckon viewers to come close, consider whether they are real people, pose next to them for photos, and perhaps even leave a few coins in appreciation.

This is a project of the Public Art Fund.

Description:

In The Park, Shannon Plumb inserts a variety of characters into the Madison Square Park’s everyday moments. Plumb, known for using handmade props and costumes in order to inhabit vaudevillian-inspired characters in her videos, has made many visits to Madison Square Park in 2008 to film 8mm footage during each different season to use as backdrops for these videos. The resulting 12 works track the comedy and, at times, tragedy that comes with living our private lives out-of-doors.

The Park is screened daily from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on four outdoor video screens on the grounds of the Shake Shack.

This project is organized and sponsored by the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Description:
Eleanora Kupencow’s colorful figures are made from cut, painted steel. For the title, the artist borrowed a term from natural science. Coined in 1927 by British astronomer Arthur Eddington, an “arrow of time” specifies the direction of time on a four-dimensional relativistic map of world.

Description:

Tadashi Kawamata creates complex and chaotic architectural growths of raw lumber, found objects, and construction scraps that bloom around the park’s trees. His artistic practice is finely attuned to the site’s physical characteristics and is organic and improvisational.

Kawamata has made an international reputation by fashioning humble materials and found objects such as untreated lumber, chairs, barrels, and construction scraps into poetic and transformative interventions into public space. His “Project on Roosevelt Island” (1992), in which Kawamata surrounded the island’s derelict Smallpox Hospital building with a massive and complex web of simple wood scaffolding, remains one of the most well known and highly regarded solo public art works in New York City’s history. Tadashi Kawamata was born in 1953 on the Japanese island of Hokaido, and he currently lives and works in Japan.

This project is organized and sponsored by the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Description:
​Socrates Sculpture Park’s annual emerging artist exhibition is the fruit of the fellowship program, in which up-and-coming artists make outdoor sculpture, many of them for their first time, with the assistance of Socrates staff. This year’s highlights include a pile of cakes by Aaron King and a “Master Station” subway entrance by Brina Thurston. The full list of artists includes: David Brooks, Pilar Conde, Zack Davis, Christian de Vietri, Aaron King, Zak Kitnick, Lynn Koble, Tamara Kostianovsky, Mads Lynnerup, Wyatt Nash, Navin June Norling, Andrea Stanislav, Brina Thurston, Kon Trubkovich, Lan Tuazon, and Erik & Ninh Vysocan. 

Description:
Far Rockaway resident Ethan Long has created a rammed-earth sculpture along the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk. This large-scale earthwork resembles a minimal cube during the day, but as night falls a series of fiber-optic lights dotting the structure’s surface are revealed. These lights glint like stars against the dirt structure adding a cyberelectric dimension to this powerful tribute of the dexterity of environmental elements.

Description:
Curated by Alyson Baker, Mark Dion, and Marichris Ty, State Fair is a group exhibition themed around American rural life and uses the platform of the state fair as a means to examine topics such as animal husbandry, specialized horticulture, small scale farming, culinary arts, and the pageantry within these fields that occurs at fairgrounds across the country. The show will also incorporate work that references traditional craft, and the myriad of amusements, rides, competitions, and entertainment that are presented as part of state fairs. Featured artists include Margarita Cabrera, Jennifer Cecere, Emily Feinstein, Charles Gute, Jeanine Oleson, Risa Puno, Dana Sherwood & The Black Forest Fancies, Stephen Shore, Jason Simon, William Stone, and Bernard Williams.

Description:

This exhibition features new works by the Socrates Sculpture Park’s current resident artists: Martin Basher, Chelsea Beck, Kim Beck & Osman Khan, Michael Berens, Sari Carel, Adriana Farmiga, Kimberley Hart, Rajkamal Kahlon, Jason Bailer Losh, Matthew Lusk, Jong Il Ma, Ted McCann, Juniper Perlis, and Harriet Salmon.

Fellowship artists are awarded a $5,000 grant and a residency in the Park’s outdoor studio and are provided with technical support and access to tools, materials, and equipment to facilitate the production of new sculptures and installations for exhibition in the Park. The fellows develop their projects throughout the summer in the open studio and on site in the landscape, offering visitors the opportunity to experience both the creation and presentation of their works. Representing a broad range of materials, working methods, and subject matter, the diverse sculptural works in this exhibition are presented against the Park’s spectacular waterfront view of the Manhattan skyline.

Socrates Sculpture Park is open 365 days a year from 10:00 a.m. to sunset and is located at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City.