Art in the Parks

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.

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2018

Queens

Ruth Hofheimer, Birds of Paradise, courtesy of the Natural Areas Conservancy

Ruth Hofheimer, Birds of Paradise
September 1, 2017 to August 30, 2018
Bayswater Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

New York City-based artist Ruth Hofheimer has installed Birds of Paradise, a 500-foot-long mural at the gateway to Bayswater Park as part of an initiative to study, restore, and reinvigorate the park. Guided by the artist, neighborhood volunteers helped paint the mural using a simple paint-by-numbers process. Inspired by the wildlife in Bayswater Park and the larger ecosystem of Jamaica Bay, Hofheimer’s mural reflects the landscape, plants, and animals that live along the city's coastline. Images of herons, osprey, striped bass, Spanish mackerel, and marshy grasslands are incorporated into the public artwork. Birds, particularly herons, are the focus of Hofheimer’s design because of Jamaica Bay's famed reputation as a "birder’s paradise."

This exhibition is presented by the Natural Areas Conservancy and the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy

Image credit: Xaviera Simmons, Convene, 2018, installation view, Hunter’s Point South Park. Commissioned by SculptureCenter, New York. Courtesy the artist and David Castillo Gallery, Miami. Photo: Kyle Knodell

Xaviera Simmons, Convene
May 23, 2018 to August 19, 2018
Hunter's Point South Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Convene is a sculptural installation of aluminum canoes painted with designs that abstractly and explicitly evoke national flags symbolic of the diverse historical and contemporary demographic makeup of Astoria and Long Island City.

Convene addresses population data and its visual representation while engaging the canoe’s symbolic narratives of historical shift and reliance on personal vessels to move navigators, people, and goods to their desired destinations, often via bodies of water that span or bisect local, national, and international territories. Simmons’s work references the conditions and forms of migration, political and leisure travel, transport, and refuge, as well as the practices of documenting and representing the location and movement of people. Abstracting the visual identities of individual flags, Simmons acknowledges the complex interplay between national, cultural, and ethnic subjects, as well as the reality that allegiances to flags are often imperfect reflections of individual or collective identities. Presenting visual information that is hard to decipher, Convene suggests that statistics found in any set of data need critical engagement in order to be put to use.

This exhibition is presented by SculptureCenter.

Daniele Frazier, The Giant Flowers
June 2017 to June 2018
Highland Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Daniele Frazier’s exhibition The Giant Flowers consists of five giant flowers made of rip-stop nylon fabric that will inflate and move hypnotically in the wind. Each twelve-foot-long brightly colored flower will be a unique design and will tower above the park twenty feet off the ground. Not only will these joyous flowers be an unexpected sight to behold, but they will provide park-goers a real-life illustration of the changing weather conditions.

Risa Puno, Common Ground, Photography by Justin Hoch

Risa Puno, Common Ground
June 20, 2017 to June 19, 2018
Rufus King Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Consisting of a grid of interconnected picnic tables with tiled mosaic surfaces, Common Ground is an interactive sculpture that literally brings people closer together. The shared tabletops and benches each have a different mosaic design inspired by the neighborhood’s unique mix of cultures, as well as by the patterns within the adjacent King Manor Museum. Common Ground is a celebration of harmony through diversity, imbued with the ideals of the park’s namesake, Rufus King.

This exhibition was made possible by the Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant

Sam Holleran, Patrick Rowe and Mobile Print Power, Conocer y Compartir-We Find Each Other
June 20, 2017 to May 12, 2018
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Inspired by the luminaires of the 1964/65 World’s Fair, a series of illuminated sculptures guides parkgoers with graphic images that symbolize a specific place or potential experience within the park. Mobile Print Power facilitated two multilingual drawing and silkscreen printmaking sessions to create the images for the luminaires. The project builds on wayfinding suggestions that came out of The World’s Park, a project of the Design Trust for Public Space in partnership with the Queens Museum and NYC Parks.

This exhibition was made possible by the Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant.

See all locations for this project

Various Artists, The Socrates Annual
October 1, 2017 to March 11, 2018
Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
A failed Presidential amusement park, 18th century Chippendale and Queen Anne design motifs, mobile home landscape and architecture, and New York City’s urban soccer leagues are among the points of departure for the 15 distinct artist projects selected for The Socrates Annual, formerly known as The Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition. The Socrates Annual is an annual exhibition of new public art that addresses the most urgent issues of today. It is distinct in its mission to foster individual artist projects rather than present an overarching theme. 

Participating artists, whose diverse range of medium include mosaic, cast concrete, glass, and painting, were selected by Socrates Director of Exhibitions, Jess Wilcox, and the Park’s 2017 Curatorial Advisors: Eugenie Tsai, the Barbara and John Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Melissa Levin, former Vice President, Cultural Programs, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The 2017 Socrates Annual participating artists are Joe Bochynski, Paul Branca, Tanda Francis, Devra Freelander, Doreen Garner, Gordon Hall, Tali Keren and Alex Strada, Valerie Piraino, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Ronny Quevedo, Amy Ritter, Moeinedin Shashaei, David B. Smith, Laura Swanson, and Wang Xu.

This exhibition is presented by Socrates Sculpture Park.

Image caption: Tanda Francis, “Take Me With You,” photo by Scott Lynch, courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park

Photo by Timothy Schenck, courtesy of Public Art Fund

Ai Weiwei, Circle Fence, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
October 12, 2017 to February 11, 2018
The Unisphere, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

The Unisphere was created for the 1964 World’s Fair as an aspirational image of global unity at the height of the Cold War. It has become a proud icon for Queens, now one of the world’s most ethnically diverse urban areas. During our own period of increasing nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, Ai draws renewed attention to its symbolism. His 1,000-foot-long Circle Fence uses a series of metal frames with interconnected netting to surround the site, creating a global border that can be seen as both playful and sobering.

This work is part of the citywide exhibition Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. Ai Weiwei conceived this multi-site, multi-media exhibition for public spaces, monuments, buildings, transportation sites, and advertising platforms throughout New York City. Collectively, these elements comprise a passionate response to the global migration crisis and a reflection on the profound social and political impulse to divide people from each other. Visitors will discover that Ai’s “good fences” are not impenetrable barriers but powerful, immersive, and resonant additions to the fabric of the city.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund.

Staten Island

Image Credit: James Merlis, Harbor Block, courtesy of Mariners Harbor Parks

James Merlis, Harbor Block
September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2019
Bobbie Lewis Jr. Playground , Staten Island
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
At Mariner’s Harbor Playground the sense of community has been rebuilt around family activities and youth recreation. For residents, this park has been a safe haven, meeting ground, sports complex, clubhouse, and as a place of neighborhood regeneration. Harbor Block celebrates the area’s unified efforts to enliven this park, and its excitement for the future.

This project is presented by Friends of Mariners Harbor Parks

Image Credit: Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao, Stick Stump & The Lawn Lumps, courtesy of the artists

Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao, Stick Stump & The Lawn Lumps
July 30, 2018 to July 29, 2019
Tappen Park, Staten Island
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
Stick Stump & The Lawn Lumps, a grouping of five unique sculptures, create a playful forum for reading, recreation, performance, and public interaction. Like hopping along a series of rocks in the landscape or finding that perfectly shaped stone to rest and take a seat, Frezza and Chiao aim for the works to invite viewers to engage with the art as they might engage with nature.

This exhibition was made possible by the Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant.

Image Credit: Courtesy of SI Arts

Lina Montoya, Ballena & Vallenato (Whale and Calf)
July 14, 2018 to July 13, 2019
Barrett Triangle, Staten Island
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Ballena & Vallenato (Whale and Calf), by Lina Montoya in partnership with 100 Gates Project is a colorful mural on the bus shelter at Barrett Triangle that depicts the endangered Right Whale and her calf.

Sonic Gates is created by artist Volker Goetze. The public art project is an initiative of Future Culture, launched by Staten Island Arts and the Design Trust for Public Space to foster community connections and shape a vision for culture on the North Shore of Staten Island.

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