Art in the Parks

Description:

Viewfinding is a public art installation and queer poetry collaboration by New York-based artist Sarah E. Brook in Riverside Park South. It is a dimensional painting, interactive light sculpture, and a haven for private reflection. Brook’s sculptures and installations utilize translucency, layering, color gradients and architectural references to investigate the relationship between expansive external and internal (psychic) space, exploring how vastness can dismantle limiting narratives of being. Viewfinding consists of five wooden trapezoidal components, installed one behind the next and connected by a meandering bench that mimics the river nearby and interacts with the sun setting over the Hudson River. Strips of cast acrylic are fixed within each trapezoid, painted in gradations of color that progress from rich blue to fiery pink, referencing the color progression of a sky at sunset. On the bench are a series of 26 acrylic panels engraved with short works by queer poets—selected through an open call--on the theme of transformation and self-actualization.  Visible to viewers who engage closely with the work, the text will provide rich and varied entry points into the piece.

Contributing poets range from not-yet-published students to Lambda Literary Award winners (all poet bios on the project website).

Description:

Present Histories: An East Harlem Photo Album is located in an invaluable community park and neighborhood, now facing increased gentrification. The installation highlights historic moments and contemporary culture with photographs that the artist collected from various residents, community organizations, institutions, and NYC Parks’ photo archive. Granados digitally scanned the photographs and transformed them into laser etchings on colorful Plexiglas that are interwoven into the grid of the park’s trellis. Park visitors become part of the artistic narrative as they look into additional mirrored tiles, viewing both the moments depicted and their own reflection. New images will be added to the trellis throughout the year.

This exhibition is presented by the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance.

Art in the Parks: Active Open Space is a partnership between NYC Parks and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in collaboration with the Fund for Public Health in NYC and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to activate park space with health-inspired art installations that promote physical activity and strengthen community connections. Funding for this project was made possible by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Description:

Harumi Ori folds and sews orange industrial mesh, a sacred color in Japan, to create three dimensional snapshots. Using photographs she took of parkgoers as inspiration, she has created a vibrant 30 foot portrait of the park out of mesh. Her layered folds convincingly render the shape and volume of people and their surroundings. The installation both documents and celebrates the surrounding community’s diversity.

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

Description:

Thousands of handmade, glazed porcelain parts join together in an eight-foot orb for artist Rebecca Manson’s first public installation, Come Closer and the View Gets Wider.

Come Closer and the View Gets Wider is a sphere of tiny porcelain sculptures, each an intimate, bone-like shape, adhered and supported by an elaborate system of aluminum and epoxy. Comprised of innumerable parts which on their own may appear insignificant, the structure celebrates the idea that small things together amount to something impactful; a monument to collective consciousness.

Manson’s work stretches the limits of ceramics, challenging preconceived notions regarding fragility. “My work uses ceramics as a metaphor for the individual and societal body,” says Manson. “This sculpture was informed by the process of working with clay, a nature that wants to collapse. For me, ceramics is tied to personal resilience and rebuilding in the face of adversity.”

Description:
Karla and James Murray’s wood-framed sculpture consists of near life-size photographs of four mom-and-pop neighborhood stores of the Lower East Side, which are no longer in business and have disappeared from the streetscape. Images of a bodega, a coffee shop/luncheonette, a vintage store, and a newsstand recognize the unique and irreplaceable contribution made to New York by small, often family-owned businesses.

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

Description:
In Maren Hassinger; Monuments, the eight sculptures on view respond to the landscape of Marcus Garvey Park. Hassinger considers the natural environment a site of hope and potential, a place of equality, where humanity has a shared purpose of stewardship and understanding. According to Hassinger, "Within nature, we are equal." Maren Hassinger: Monuments transforms Marcus Garvey Park into a space both physical and psychological and prompts the audience to consider the place of nature in their lives. Each of the eight sculptures is meant to provide a contemplative moment, one that invites multiple responses that call forth memories or associations for those who encounter them.

Description:

For Full Steam Ahead, Arlene Shechet reconfigures the Park’s emptied circular reflecting pool with a series of sculptures, designing the space as an outdoor room or what Shechet calls “a manufactured version of nature.” Her installation straddles function and art by including seating for conversation, fostering interaction within the Park’s teeming urban site. Initially inspired by memories of the sunken living room in her grandparents’ apartment, she encourages visitors to step into the reflecting pool to linger and reflect.

Along the pathways and perimeter of the reflecting pool, Shechet has chosen to realize human-scale sculpture to relate to the physical presence of traversing visitors, utilizing forms that reflect her interest in historical decorative arts and are suggestive of flora and fauna: the outsized remnants of a lion’s head and paw; remains of a bird’s colossal feather displayed high on a pedestal as an ominous trophy; and tree-like sculptures and branches in cast iron. As visitors walk around the installation, they will discern deliberate contradiction in Shechet’s work: figuration and abstraction, humor and narrative, mass and immateriality, innovation and extinction.

This exhibition is presented by Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Description:
Marcos Lutyens’ sculpture Universal Solvent is a bench sculpture with a smartphone-acquired sound component that takes listeners into the world of water. Located on the plaza platform, the bench is made out of water-jet cut, polished aluminum that mimics the appearance of a calm body of water marked by small ripples created using a contrasting etched surface. Using a QR code posted on a nearby sign, park visitors can access a sound recording that explores myths and realities linked to the world of water, encouraging discussions about water and its importance to life across the planet. 

Description:
Agora is a group exhibition that looks at the role of art in defining, creating, and using public space. For centuries, artists have used public locations—and the public in general—as the heart of for their work. The exhibition looks at the power of art to change society, the role of art in public space, and whether art can be a form of protest. Artists working in public often take a political tone, mobilizing the public for social and political change, and for the possibility of realizing an alternate future. On the High Line—a public space and a natural platform—nine artists share their experiences inhabiting, speaking out of, and challenging the assumed boundaries of public space, where different voices can be heard, addressing important topics such as women’s rights, mass incarceration, the environment, and immigration.

Artists who are part of this exhibition include Maria Thereza Alves, Andrea Bowers, Mariechen Danz, Pope.L, Duane Linklater, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, Marinella Senatore, Timur Si-Qin, and Sable Elyse Smith.

This exhibition is presented by the Friends of the High Line. 

Description:

Nick Kozak’s installation Opposition Position challenges us to examine our education system and to stage our own educational interactions in this classroom in the park. Here all are welcome to attend free workshops led by local students on the first Saturday of the month through March (rain date on second Saturday). Opposition Position is one of two artworks presented as part of the exhibition Persuasive Visions. Inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois’s conviction that propaganda through the arts can create social change, Persuasive Visions presents the work of two local artists, Gina Goico and Nick Kozak who respond to today’s constant deluge of (mis)information. Persuasive Visions was curated by Stephanie A. Lindquist.

This exhibition is presented by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance.