Art in the Parks

The Park’s teen group, Socrateens, has curated the Broadway Billboard after conducting studio visits with a line-up of recent Socrates artist alumni. After studio visits with each artist and reviewing proposals, teens selected the work by Joiri Minaya from her series The Marooned Picturesque. Socrateens Jessica Reynoso and Tasfiya Mubasshira note about the work: “It evokes the universal experience of remembering snippets of a place and has a dreamy quality fitting to New York City.” This collaboration provides a unique opportunity for teens and future art workers to participate in the curatorial and exhibition process, and deepens our relationship with artists dedicated to the Park.

This exhibition is presented by Socrates Sculpture Park.

Malik Roberts is a painter and an adroit practitioner of multimedia arts annexing the image plane and the conventions of figuration for an explicit endeavor in distilling, with the force and clarity of revelation, an essence of fibrous multiplicity that characterizes the being and becoming of black culture, as well as the virtualities and dregs of human nature.

This mural consists of two silhouettes, layered with colors, over two different sky backgrounds. It showcases the beauty and diversity of Queens while inspiring anyone who plays on the court to see a part of themselves in the work. Court participants can play within the sky, a platform to reach the beyond.

Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds is an artist and an advocate for indigenous communities worldwide. He works in multidisciplinary forms of art. His expressions focus on indigenous social justice, and on the personal freedom to live within the tribal circle as an expressive individual.

“Neuf” is a Cheyenne word that means doing something four times as in a ceremony in the four directions. The paintings acknowledge the Cheyenne nation and celebrate it by applying varying colors to evoke the landscape, fish swimming, or bodies moving across the canvas from left to right. These paintings were created on Oahu.

This exhibition is presented by Project Backboard.

Created by local artist Eric Black, this mural pays tribute to the contributions to iconic people who have made Southeast Queens their home. It represents a wide variety of individuals whose legacies have shaped a variety of fields, including sports, entertainment, literature, and civil rights, beyond Queens.

This exhibition is presented by Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning with funding from Councilmembers I. Daneek Miller and Nantasha Williams.

This public artwork celebrates hair as a form of cultural identity, beauty, and beliefs. In this initiative RPGA Studio worked with community members to capture the diversity in our community and engaged students at Queens College about hair, cultural identity, and community empowerment. Through these conversations RPGA Studio designed 21 hairstyle illustrations to go along the fence of Captain Tilly Park. Hairstyles include community member with gray hair, no hair, afros, braids, ponytails, 3c and 4c hair curl patterns, Indian traditional styles, male top buns, and more.

This public art piece is in remembrance of those we have lost to COVID-related deaths. Working with the community, RPGA Studio collected stories that inspired the ceramic relief tiles attached on the concrete border of the reflection pond. The pond is a mirrored acrylic pane that reflects the sky above and the individual looking down at the pond. Leaf boats serve as a space for community members to put flowers, silent notes to reach loved ones.

This exhibition is presented by MoMA PS1.

Photographer Elias Williams spent the first 15 years of his life in and around St. Albans, the southeast Queens enclave that would become the primary subject of his long-term project celebrating the nuances of Black homeownership in the midst of economic hardship and preserving the identity of one of New York City’s historically Black communities. The predominantly African American and Caribbean American working-and middle-class neighborhood is known by locals for its pride, strength, and unity. The housing crisis struck heavily in St. Albans and transformed the community into an epicenter of mortgage fraud. In 2007, Black communities throughout New York City were targeted by banks with predatory loans nearly seven times as high as loans in affected white communities. While the effects of the housing crisis still linger, the soul of this community persists.

This exhibition is presented by Photoville and National Geographic.

This year, Socrates asks artists to consider the present-day ecological conditions and challenges that our globe faces. We are at once on the tipping point of irreparable ecological devastation and at the dawn of a new age of Green politics and technologies. While a global phenomenon, climate change does not impact all equally. The costs are greater borne on disadvantaged groups with less political power—those in developing countries, women, the young, the elderly, racial and ethnic minorities, and those without access to capital.

How can we address the urgency, enormity, and challenges of climate change without falling into melancholy or paralysis? How do the matrices of race, gender, and class intersect in this Green future? What can we do to mitigate eco-anxiety surrounding these many simultaneous demands for global change? What can we learn from historically vulnerable, but thriving communities that can help us navigate this challenge?

Artists in this exhibition include Cheyenne Concepcion, Sean Desiree, Koyoltzintli, Randi Renate, and Daniel Shieh. 

This exhibition is presented by Socrates Sculpture Park.