Art in the Parks

Description:

“At first sight, the sculpture of Allen Glatter might appear to be a literal take on Paul Klee’s remark that a drawing is simply a line going on a walk. Each work, including Toro, takes the form of a continuous curve zigzagging through space, rising from the ground to above eye level and traversing the better part of a gallery room, or in the case of the outdoor work, a sidewalk. Constructed from seamlessly joined steel tubing, uniform in diameter, the freestanding sculptures simultaneously gather and perforate the spaces around them. Walking around the work produces a pleasant feeling that seems to derive from a rhythm of anticipation and surprise; despite the few formal elements involved, the overall experience varies radically from one vantage point to another. Each sculpture has a definite axis, and when viewed in that direction, the piece tends to open up into a number of loop windows. Though there are many changes of direction in its path, the curve is less of a meandering walk than a sequence of turns, an itinerary.”

Excerpted from a text by Philip Ording.

This exhibit is sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts.

Description:

Fata Morgana by New York-based artist Teresita Fernández, consists of 500 running feet of golden, mirror-polished discs that create canopies above the pathways around the Park’s central Oval Lawn.

In nature, a Fata Morgana is a horizontal mirage that forms across the horizon line. Alluding to this phenomenon, Fernandez’s project introduces a shimmering horizontal element to the Park that engages visitors in a dynamic experience. The installation is a mirror-polished, golden metal sculpture that hovers above the Park’s winding walkways to define a luminous experiential passage for Park visitors. The metal forms, perforated with intricate patterns reminiscent of foliage, creates abstract flickering effects as sunlight filters through the canopy, casting a golden glow across the expanse of the work, paths, and passersby. The project is Mad. Sq. Art’s first to fully utilize the upper register of a visitor’s space.

“Fata Morgana is a site-specific work designed for, and inspired by, Madison Square Park,” said Ms. Fernández. “My concept was to invert the traditional notion of outdoor sculpture by addressing all of the active walkways of the Park rather than setting down a sculptural element in the Park’s center. By hovering over the Park in a horizontal band, Fata Morgana becomes a ghost-like, sculptural, luminous mirage that both distorts the landscape and radiates golden light.”

This exhibition is presented by the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Description:

Nature provided us with a general way to measure time: dividing it into days, lunar months, and seasons. Since ancient times, however, we have invented ways of measuring time in smaller units with ever–increasing precision — from the sundial to the hourglass to the atomic clock. As clock making technology advanced during the Renaissance, handsome public clocks became a source of civic pride, as well as a useful amenity. In today’s digital age, they more often evoke a sense of nostalgia for another era.

In Against the Run, Alicja Kwade (b. 1979, Katowice, Poland) has created a clock that tells the correct time, but does so in a way that confounds expectations. Adapting a nineteenth–century design that we might typically see in New York City, the artist has reversed the conventional mechanism. The face of the clock rotates backwards while the second hand appears to stand still, pointing vertically at all times. Our understanding of how a clock should run is second nature, making this variation almost impossible to read, even as it continues to tell the right time. Kwade’s whimsical clock captures her interest in the systems we invent to make sense of our lives and the world. In doing so, it prompts us to see “reality” from a new perspective.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund.

Description:

Installed along Randall’s Island Park’s southeastern shoreline, Rob Swainston’s Who Owns the Sky is a large-scale semi-transparent billboard, hand-printed with images of clouds inspired by historic woodcuts and engravings of sky motifs. The viewer can observe their constantly shifting relation to cloud patterns both alongside the frame and behind the translucent fabric. These shifts, according to the artist, evoke and recreate the human quest for direction and meaning in the heavens.

Ownership of the heavens was left to the gods, as depicted in myths, described through religions, and displayed in art. However, with the advent of aerospace technology, constellations have ceded their dominion to planes, no-fly zones and drones. Globalization and global climate change further complicate this story. Who Owns the SkyΑ questions our attempt to assert power over a firmament in which our presence remains transient.

FLOW.15 is presented by Randall’s Island Parks Alliance, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Made Event.

Description:

Located at the touchdown of the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge from Manhattan, Sharon Ma’s hello welcomes and celebrates the neighbors of Randall’s Island Park by highlighting the enthusiasm and warmth generated by this simple word. Comprising five ten-foot-tall letters planted with succulent plants, this living, vertical garden functions as the “voice” of the landscape, calling to all who pass. Ma’s goal is to invite photography with the piece, extending the medium into a public space and a larger scale in order to record and share visitor interaction. Ma’s hello invokes familiar “Greetings from ...” postcards of a previous era, and calls upon us to create and share our own digital messages with Randall’s Island Park as background.

FLOW.15 is presented by Randall’s Island Parks Alliance, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Made Event.

Description:

David Wilson’s Etherwave Architecture #1 is inspired by the social, political and spatial transformation of Randall’s Island Park from “dumping ground” for institutional uses into a lush park where citizens choose to spend leisure time. The structure mimics objects and materials normally associated with urban defensive architecture, such as wrought iron spiked guards and fences, subverting their original meaning and context by directly and specifically inviting interaction.

The iron and steel elements in Etherwave Architecture #1 function as an engineered Theremin, acting as antennas that control sound oscillators. The sizes and shapes of the different elements allow approach from all around so that visitor movement, exploration and interaction directly produces a range of sounds. Through active engagement with these defensive structures, Wilson hopes to bring awareness to the dilemmas surrounding public spaces, while playfully appropriating objects that make up oppressive design practices.

FLOW.15 is presented by Randall’s Island Parks Alliance, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Made Event.

Description:

Rica Takashima’s El Barrio Comes in All Colors, Shapes and Sizes blends her Manga aesthetic with Puerto Rican colors and motifs inspired by the artist’s exploration of East Harlem’s El Barrio, which is located across the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge from Randall’s Island Park. This female figure, constructed of brightly painted wood, intends to invite visitors to sit and gaze with her across the Harlem River.

She is surrounded by smaller structures that reflect buildings containing her past, present and future life in El Barrio: her birthplace; a café she owns and operates in the neighborhood; and the home of her dream child of the future. A native of Japan, Takashima is inspired by the residents and history of El Barrio, and by the intersection of personal and political action. Her piece invites visitors to join in exploration and appreciation of the vibrant community just opposite the Park’s shoreline.

FLOW.15 is presented by Randall’s Island Parks Alliance, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Made Event.

Description:

Nicholas Fraser’s All Consuming resembles a typical city distance sign with two critical deviations; the names represented on the sign are extinct cities and are constructed out of compacted birdseed. The words are placed between metal grates and are intended to be continually consumed by wildlife for the duration of the exhibition. As time progresses the characters will become indefinable forms, similar to ruins of cities uncovered by archaeologists.

Located on the southern shoreline of Randall’s Island Park, the sculpture is continually in flux, evoking the cyclical nature of cities by harnessing natural processes to visually echo decay and ephemerality. Fraser uses the names of cities from a wide range of cultures and draws attention to the resilience of cultural heritage and its ability to survive through the being adopted by direct descendants.

FLOW.15 is presented by Randall’s Island Parks Alliance, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Made Event.

Description:

Our daily experience of urban space is technologically mediated – from the images on screens in taxis, subway stations and streets, to the maps, cameras, and social networks of our smart phones. We use these devices to navigate, document, and share our lives online. In so doing, we participate in the creation of a rapidly changing digital landscape. Responding to this contemporary context, Image Objects brings together the work of seven international artists who share an interest in digital culture and its influence on the relationship between images and objects.

With new works produced specifically for this exhibition, each artist has drawn from source images and used digital means to create new sculptural forms. Alice Channer’s R O C K F A L L (2015) and Jon Rafman’s New Age Demanded (2015) employ advanced digital fabrication tools to transform images into three-dimensional objects. Other artists – like Amanda Ross-Ho and Artie Vierkant – have created works that directly address the photographic life of a sculpture when it is documented and shared online. As images are rendered into objects and objects are circulated as images, the boundaries between the physical and the virtual are blurred, challenging us to rethink how we see the world around us.

Featured Artists: Alice Channer, Lothar Hempel, Jon Rafman, Amanda Ross-Ho, Timur Si-Qin, Hank Willis Thomas, and Artie Vierkant

This exhibition is presented by the Public Art Fund.

Description:

Located along the esplanade leading up to the recently opened High Bridge, Oh Sit! 14 Sculptors Consider the Chair is a group exhibition of nine artists’ public artworks. In a frantic world, finding a chair can be almost impossible and settling comfortably into one can be an enormous satisfaction. Sitting in the wrong seat can cause anxiety and an even pain. Exhibiting artists Dan Bergman, Allan Cyprys, Robert Dell, Gregoire Ferland, Esther Grillo, Christina Jorge, Siena Gillann Porta, Herb Rosenberg and Chuck von Schmidt respond imaginatively to the notion of sitting or using a chair. Oh Sit! is framed as an imperative, a command—a way of asking the viewer to look and really consider the concept “chair” both objectively and subjectively.

14 Sculptors is a group of professional artists who have been actively exhibiting throughout the metropolitan area, creating a forum for experimental sculpture and principally installation artworks free from the constraints of a commercial viewpoint. This non-profit tax exempt organization has been functioning under the auspices of the New York Foundation for the Arts for the past 42 years.

This exhibition is sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Rockaway Artist Alliance.