Art in the Parks

One Map of Many Moments is an artist led, community generated project that transforms trash into inspiring public art by turning hundreds of broken glass shards collected from Fort Greene Park into a mosaic map of the park. Drawings from park visitors depicting everything from historic figures of Fort Greene to the current day activities and horticultural wonders of the grounds are sprinkled throughout the map. Each piece of the larger whole offers a contemplative view of our neighborhood’s waste and deep dedication to our park and highlights the role of community in preserving urban green spaces.

This exhibition is presented by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy.

4 Seasons of Lindens at the Linden Sitting Area consists of four decommissioned parking meters, each outfitted with a small diorama of linden trees throughout the seasons. The meters pay homage to the trees that this small park is named after. These works are part of an ongoing series of work, The Parking Meter Project, by artist Conrad Stojak. Stojak works with obsolete New York parking meters, many of which can be found out on the city streets and in warehouses, by upcycling them into public works of art. Each one is an individualistic, self-contained micro-world depicting New York City scenes in the form of urban dioramas that are community specific.

Cecile Chong’s installation is based on the myth of the lost treasure of El Dorado. Over the centuries the story has been told in many ways, often as a metaphor for an ultimate prize that one might spend a lifetime seeking. In this updated version of the story, El Dorado is discovered in Sunset Park as a contemporary archeological site. This installation promotes ideas of transformation, immigration and community. It honors the opportunities that this city offers to newcomers, but most of all, it acknowledges the labor and efforts that immigrants contribute in return.

This installation consists of 100 metallic-colored sculptures scattered within a fenced-in triangle near the northwest corner of the park, close to the entrance on 5th Avenue at 41st Street. The sculptures are modeled after tightly swaddled babies, or “guaguas,” that the artist saw while living in Ecuador. Forty-nine sculptures will be gold, referring to the 49% of New Yorkers who speak a language other than English at home.

During the school year, artist Raul Ayala worked with three students at El Puente to create a series of three designs based on the themes of freedom and community empowerment. These designs are then cut into different geometric shapes on plywood, and hung from chain link fence. El Puente has been a force in Bushwick for the last 25 years developing powerful youth leaders through its El Puente Bushwick Leadership Center. For the past four years, El Puente has been leading the transformation of Hope Ballfield for the community.

This exhibition is presented by El Puente Bushwick Leadership Center.

Divergence is a sculpture about experimentation with the human form, positive and negative relationships, and the interplay between the figure and a sculptural environment. In his art, William Soltis experiments with shapes, images, patterns, and lines, allowing the construction process to create the idea, rather than forcing a completely formed idea into becoming an object. As a subject, the human figure lends itself well to this open process. It can be left representational or made abstract. Its form can be smooth, angular, sharp, or curved, with active, passive, or emotive gestures. He often works with welded metal due to its versatility, permanence, and strength and ability to survive indoor, outdoors, in gardens, or urban settings equally well.

The Family Imprint is an intimate story of family, as the humanitarian photographer Nancy Borowick’s parents underwent parallel treatments for stage-four cancer. The story is about life and love more than cancer and death. In a sense, it reads and feels like a scrapbook—and is filled with decades of saved loved letters, keepsakes and other clues about her family members’ lives, enriching the larger story which she had been photographing for a few years already. The project, which was formally known as Cancer Family Ongoing, was published nationally and internationally, has received international awards and recognition, most recently a World Press Photo award in 2016. Here, Borowick’s images are reproduced on vinyl banners. While deeply personal, this work touches all who pass by it in this public space.

This exhibition is presented by United Photo Industries and the DUMBO BID.

As part of its 40th Anniversary season, Public Art Fund brings Descension, one of Anish Kapoor’s most viscerally arresting installations, to New York City for the first time. Sited at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, this massive, continuously spiraling funnel of water will harness one of the most evanescent of materials and create a striking contrast with the adjacent East River. Kapoor, among the most influential artists of his generation, has had a career-long engagement with space and the limits of perception. With Descension, he has created a dynamic negative space that descends into the ground, disturbing the familiar boundaries of our world. In the midst of a quintessential New York park, Kapoor invites us to experience the sheer perceptual wonder of an ordinary material like water made to behave in an extraordinary way.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

René is comprised of scrap wood found in nearby Gowanus, Brooklyn. The sculpture speaks to the community members and organizations that are being forgotten as neighborhoods develop. This work enhances the conversations related to sustainability and usefulness as they apply to Brooklyn, but also other communities where residents, businesses, and artists have been forced out by neighborhood change. Farber hopes that this work will serve as a reminder that communities can come together and find a sustainable way in which to move forward. The name of the sculpture relates to the theme of again finding a voice, being found, and–through cooperation and collaboration–being reborn

Prospect Park Alliance, AREA4 and Suchi Reddy of Reddymade Architecture & Design debut a large-scale public art installation in Prospect Park on the occasion of the Park’s 150th Anniversary. The Connective Project transforms Prospect Park’s Rose Garden—a little-known landscape in the Park’s northeast corner—into an immersive, engaging and ever-growing display. The Connective Project is composed of more than 7,000 individually designed pinwheels, printed with artwork, photographs, verse and prose submitted by the public. During the installation, the public will be invited to take part in making additional pinwheels to add to the display during select hours. Reddy chose pinwheels because they are universally loved objects of childhood memories, much like public parks, and evoke nature in their movement attuned to wind and natural forces.

This exhibition is presented by the Prospect Park Alliance.

For more than 45 years Eisner has been welding massive abstract sculptures from scrap and recycled metal. The four works that will be on view in Prospect Park are from a series Eisner created in the past 10 years from I–beams, rolled and twisted to create lyrical, elegant forms. This yearlong exhibition utilizes four key sites throughout the Park, chosen to maximize visitor access. The grassy triangle entrance facing Grand Army Plaza is home to Dancer, a 17–foot tall sculpture which spirals and soars upwards. Zerques, one of the smaller sculptures standing six and half feet tall will be placed on the lawn in front of the historic Litchfield Villa on 5th Street. Skipper, rising 13 feet and also constructed with curved I–beams, will greet visitors entering the Park from Bartel–Pritchard Square. Valentine II, named for its elegant heart shaped form, will be placed on the Peninsula in front of the Lake.

This exhibition is presented by Susan Eley Fine Art and the Prospect Park Alliance.