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.
Description: Manolo Valdes on Broadway includes sixteen bronze sculptures along Broadway from Columbus Circle to 166th Street. Each sculpture will include signage that displays mobile phone access numbers for an English and Spanish language audio tour with informative descriptions of the works.
Manolo Valdes is one of the most important and respected Spanish artists working today. Best known for his passion for past masters from Zurbaran to Velazquez, Matisse to Lichtenstein, Valdes uses their work "as a pretext" ("como pretexto") to create an entirely new aesthetic object. For example, six massive sculptures entitled Reina Mariana, each over eight feet in height and weighing over two thousand pounds, depict Queen Mariana as immortalized by Velazquez. Four of these sculptures with their abstract and simplified forms will grace the famous city landmark, Columbus Circle, as well as two at the south entrance to the 72nd Street subway station. Also sited at the subway station is Odalisca, 2006, a sculpture whose subtle forms refer to works of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Another highlight of the exhibition is the series of six monumental bronzes – all over 12 feet in height – depicting female heads, their calm facial composure and structured equilibrium offset rhythmically by dynamic ornamental head-pieces. The exhibition will also include the New York debut of Valdes' two equestrian sculptures Dama a caballo V, 2008 and Caballero V, 2008, which were inspired by Velazquez's seventeenth-century portraits.
Queens
Patrick McDonough, Awning Studies: SOCRATES, 2011 September 10, 2011 to March 4, 2012 Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.
Awning Studies: SOCRATES, 2011 by Washington DC-based artist Patrick McDonough, is the culmination of a three-month Public Art Residency (PAR) Program, established in partnership with the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA).
A collaboration between Socrates and the WPA was initiated in 2010, to introduce artists from the District of Columbia area to the practical and conceptual issues related to the creation of public art. McDonough is the second recipient of this award. The PAR Program is an extension of the Park's ongoing OPEN SPACE series, a forum for single artists and collaborative projects.
Awning Studies: SOCRATES, 2011 continues McDonough's exploration of the awning as a key architectural adornment that is central to the domestic vernacular of the northeastern United States. His project takes the form of a series of fabricated awnings without buildings: some installed in tress, some arching over the water and others rising on a combination of steel and clear acrylic supports.
The EAF11 exhibition launches a year-long celebration of the Park's 25th Anniversary. After a five-year expansion of two additional artists per year, the EAF11 exhibition also marks the first annual initiative to support twenty artists. The 2011 fellows are: Cecile Chong, Joy Curtis, Nadja Frank, Ben Godward, Darren Goins, Ethan Greenbaum, Jesse A. Greenberg, Rachel Higgins, Roxanne Jackson, Hong Seon Jang, Jason Clay Lewis, Saul Melman, Jo Nigoghossian, Nick Paparone, Don Porcella, Jessica Segall, Walter Benjamin Smith, Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, Nicolas Touron, and Nichole van Beek.
Fellowship artists are awarded a grant and a residency in the Park's outdoor studio and are also provided with technical support and access to tools, materials, and equipment to facilitate the production of new sculptures for exhibition in the Park. The artists develop their projects throughout the summer in the open studio and on site in the landscape, offering visitors the opportunity to experience the creation of the works that are then installed in the Park. Representing a broad range of materials, working methods and subject matter, the diverse sculptural works in this exhibition are presented against the spectacular waterfront view of the Manhattan skyline.
Javier Bosques, COCO144, J. Manuel Mansylla, Antonia A. Perez, and Simón Vega, (S) Files June 19, 2011 to August 21, 2011 Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens
Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.
Artists featured here explore the landscape as a canvas and bring elements from the street into a conversation with an urban park. Found objects, colored sand, crocheted plastic bags and painted greenery are among the elements used to explore this relationship. For the artists, the city becomes a catalogue and provides an endless supply of images and materials.
Description: Curated by Alyson Baker, with Lars Fisk and Elissa Goldstone, the show will explore the interplay between methods of viewing and the interpretation of the physical world. Vista includes eleven new works by artists: Ivan Argote, Jillian Conrad, Priscila De Carvalho, Blane De St. Croix, Michael Clyde Johnson, Leif Low-beer, Steven Millar, Slinko, Howie Sneider, Rob Swainston, and Jason Tomme.
Vista will explore the ways that methods of viewing and observation determine the assessment and evaluation of an object or scene. The works in the exhibition will employ visual alignment, perspective, and the framing of a site-line or point of view to dictate perception. The show will re-examine themes and ideas that were initially laid out in the Park's 2002 show View and is being curated in response to a reemergence of these topics in current artmaking practices. The Park's location along the East River provides a spectacular view of Manhattan that is the backdrop for all the exhibitions presented at the Park. This show will take particular stock in the Park's location and the outlook that it affords of urban greenspace, iconic cityscape, river and open sky.
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. The full list of artists includes: Gavin Anderson, Scott Andresen, Rachel Beach, Trenton Duerksen, Jonathan Durham, Daniele Frazier, Frank Haines, Jonggeon Lee, MaryKate Maher, Christopher Manzione, Clive Murphy, Jess Perlitz, Lina Puerta, Jory Rabinovitz, David M. Scanavino, Lior Shvil, Ruby Sky Stiller and Jason Villegas.
EAF artists are selected through an open call for proposals and are awarded a grant and a residency in the Park’s outdoor studio. Fellowship artists are also provided with technical support and access to tools, materials, and equipment to facilitate the production of large-scale public sculptures 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.
This September, Staten Island multimedia artist DB Lampman will present "I Am Within," a temporary sculpture installation and performance at the Freshkills Park site. The public is invited to view the installation during September’s public bus tours of the site and to attend Lampman’s two performances, which will take place during public tours on Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 10 a.m. and 1p.m.
"I Am Within" is the first sculpture installation at the new park site. Located on one of the site's capped mounds, the installation consists of several large-scale figurative sculptures - made of recycled metals, plastics and fabrics - mounted as if they occur naturally in the landscape. During the public event, the artist will wear a giant, unwieldy headdress that mimics the shape of the sculptures. “I Am Within” is about our connection to the earth and to each other. The sculptural figures and the accompanying performance are symbolic of the many ways in which humans attempt to manipulate their environment.
DB Lampman is a former ballet dancer turned sculptor. Her recent project, “I Am an Exponent of Myself” (2010), in which the artist suspended herself inside of a sculpture installation via a two-ton chain hoist, was presented last spring as part of Forward Motion Theater’s ReVision 2011 at the Tank Theater in NYC, and previously as part of the Flux Factory’s Conflux City 2010. “I Am Within” is supported by an Art Fund Grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Council for the Arts and Humanities of Staten Island (COAHSI). This project is also supported by New York Custom Fabricators, Inc., and is presented with the cooperation of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the New York City Department of Sanitation.
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