Art in the Parks

Description:

We the People is a life size copper replica of the statue in over 250 individual parts fabricated over the course of three years using the original techniques and materials. As a conceptual artist, Vo does not stipulate how many of the components should be shown together and refers to each presentation as a “detail” of the entire project. However, Public Art Fund’s exhibition featuring more than 50 pieces in Lower Manhattan’s City Hall Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park represents the largest public presentation of We the People to date. While components have been shown in exhibitions across the globe, this presentation of the work at two of New York City’s quintessential outdoor spaces invites audiences to consider the symbolic resonance of the Statue of Liberty in the city that is its home.

This is a project by the Public Art Fund.

Description:

Students from ten New York City public middle schools, with two schools representing each borough, have transformed school lunchroom tables into personalized canvases and created colorful works of public art that touch upon critical social issues in their community and across the globe. The tables, which have been installed in ten community parks across the five boroughs, are a way of giving young teens the chance to voice their opinions and reach out to the public in hopes of inspiring social change through their art. This exhibition was created by LeAp’s Public Art Program in cooperation with NYC Parks and marks the largest student exhibition in the history of NYC Parks and the first to span five boroughs. The program has included visits with distinguished artists such as Jenny Holzer, Crash, Emma Amos, Christo, and Lorna Simpson among many others. For 34 years, LeAp (Learning through an Expanded Art Program) has provided arts–based education to over two million students K-12 throughout New York City.

Artworks can be found through August at: Sara D. Roosevelt Park and Cherry Tree Park Playground in Manhattan; JJ Byrne Playground and Detective Joseph Mayrose Park in Brooklyn; St. Mary’s Park and Claremont Park in the Bronx; Juniper Valley Park and Evergreen Park in Queens; and Clove Lake Park and Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island.

For more information visit the LEAP website.

Description:

The Art Students League of New York, one of America’s premier art schools, presents the Model to Monument Program (M2M), a collaboration with NYC Parks that has culminated in the installation of the monumental sculpture, Tree of Life, at Van Cortlandt Park.

The sculpture was created by an international team of seven selected League students during a nine-month program. In its fourth year, ASL created worked closely with the naturalists from Van Cortlandt Park to identify specific invertibre that are native to the area. The information they discovered was used by the artists to recreate artistic interpretations of the specimens. These interpretations are attached to a 12 foot tree-like structure. Tree of Life will be an educational experience for park visitors. The artists are: Laura Barmack, Janet Fekete-Bolton, Ana Sofìa Martì, Lindsay McCosh, Phyllis Sanfiorenzo, Natsuki Takauji, and Minako Yoshino.

A collaborative installation created by the team is also on concurrently on view in Riverside South Park in Manhattan. This exhibition is presented with the Art Students League.

Description:

The Art Students League of New York, one of America’s premier art schools, presents the Model to Monument Program (M2M), a collaboration with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation that has culminated in the installation of the monumental sculpture, Flock, at Van Cortlandt Park.

The sculpture was created by an international team of seven selected League students during a nine-month program led by master sculptor Greg Wyatt. In its third year, ASL created a 15-foot swirl of birds in flight—making note of the amazing bird watching opportunity in the Bronx park. Flock, a collaborative piece also uses the birds to represent the diversity of the Bronx. Included in the exhibition are Beñat Iglesias Lopez, Anna Kuchel Rabinowitz, Anne Stanner, Sherwin Banfield, John N. Erianne, Reina Kubota, and Morito Yasumitsu.

A collaborative installation created by the team is also on concurrently on view in Riverside South Park in Manhattan. This exhibition is presented with the Art Students League.

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.

Description:

This summer, Las Bicicletas celebrates both art and bicycle riding in one of the most important cultural hubs of the world. Aceves Navarro said his inspiration for the bicycles came from a growing need for alternative transportation, especially in urban spaces. He also refers to the structures as “vehicles of happiness and health.”

One hundred twenty-two “bicicletas&rquo; sculptures will be installed in ten public spaces throughout Brooklyn and lower Manhattan from July through September. The public will be encouraged to visit the exhibit on bicycle, following a route of approximately ten miles of bicycle lanes and paths.

For a full list of sites please visit Las Bicicletas.

This project is in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation.