Art in the Parks

AZIMUTH is a recycled public artwork, previously installed in Washington DC as MERIDIAN. After over a year and a half outdoors, the modules were transported to New York City, rehabbed and transformed with a vibrantly colored makeover. Along with the final touches of a new ground mural, AZIMUTH provides a new community gathering spot on the Pike Street Mall. The pavilion activates this an empty and underused public park median, creating a new place to pause, frolic and play.

This exhibition is presented by the Chinatown Partnership.

Thinking of both colonial Puerto Rican landscapes and the ubiquitous construction sites throughout New York City as thresholds and incomplete environments, this sculpture recreates a guard tower (or garita, in Spanish) from the historic fortresses of Old San Juan, built out of New York City construction fencing material. The work threads commonalities between two locations with long histories, and explores contemporary notions of colonialism as a precarious, never-ending project that affects anyone within it.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of Art Park Alliance and Art Lives Here.

‘Breathing without fear’ is a site specific ceramic sculpture that depicts two life-size figures becoming one, and enjoying the community park post pandemic. The sculpture takes the form of ancient rock formations, but is recognizable as two figures together, happy and enjoying a moment of connection in Marcus Garvey Park. Though the figures are abstract, they represent all of us.

This exhibition is presented by Art Lives Here.

The colorful sculptures comprising Shadows depict ten workers who maintain the park for the benefit of the public, through their outlines. To create the sculptures, Allié spent time with each person and asked them to pose in a manner that reflected themselves. She captured these poses on film, drew their outlines, and translated them into steel silhouettes. Each worker chose their sculpture’s color. Shadows also includes an audio component, in which Allié’s subjects sing songs, whistle, hum, laugh, and share stories about their work.

This exhibition is presented by Hudson Yards Hells Kitchen Alliance.

Tierra Fragil, depicts endangered insects and birds with the flowers and plants imperative to their survival. The mural informs and encourages the preservation of familiar species whose presence we may have taken for granted.

Tierra Fragil is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement a regrant program supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, UMEZ Arts Engagement a regrant program supported by the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and administered by LMCC. Additional funding was provided by the Friends of Morningside Park.

For the High Line, Majeed presents Freedom’s Stand, an homage to the role of Black newspapers in the US. The work draws inspiration from a range of influential, community-driven work, including Chicago’s Wall of Respect and the Community Mural Movement, and emphasizes the importance of community-generated news and self-representation. Freedom’s Stand is named after Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned-and-operated newspaper in New York City, founded in 1827, which offered a counter-narrative to newspapers that attacked African Americans and encouraged slavery. The sculpture is modeled on the Dogon granaries of West Mali. The walls of the sculpture showcase headlines, articles, photographs, and advertisements from historical and contemporary Black newspapers, such as the ongoing South Shore Current in Chicago; these selections rotate monthly.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.

Observer, Observed is a play on publicly accessible binocular towers commonly found at tourist and scenic destinations. Phillips crafts a custom shape set of binoculars, cast in bronze and attached to an adjustable metal support structure, installed on the Flyover at 26th Street. Visitors can interact with the sculpture by looking through the binoculars onto the adjacent streets and buildings—while a nearby LED screen transmits live footage of the visitor’s eyes, captured by a camera inside the binoculars. The title of the work, Observer, Observed, refers to the power dynamics at play between perception and spectatorship in public space.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.

The CITYarts Our Voices mural is infused with the rich musical tradition and diverse culture of West Harlem. The borders contain personalized details by youth participants — small squares that tell the world about their identities, wishes, and dreams. 

This exhibition is presented by CITYarts.

Bharti Kher connects New Delhi and New York City with this nearly eighteen-foot-tall bronze universal mother figure, her most ambitious artwork to date. Its source is a miniature statue from the artist’s “Intermediaries” series, assembled by recomposing broken clay figurines. Kher finds these small objects in second hand markets in India, where she moved in 1992 after being raised and educated in the United Kingdom. This colossal sculpture reflects Kher’s cross-cultural identity and her appreciation for India’s rich material culture. She is an empowered force fostering a diverse community – a hybrid figure whose symbolic references to multiculturalism and plurality embody the possibility of an interconnected space of belonging and care.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund.

This mural was created by twenty-nine NYC residents between the ages of 16 and 24 as part of a Creative Art Works (CAW) Public Art Youth Employment program. To ensure that the themes of the mural truly reflect the neighborhood, CAW youth apprentices surveyed community representatives and local residents. After an extensive period of brainstorming, sketching and color studies, every member on the team contributed ideas that were incorporated. Figurative elements include street musicians, a child smelling a flower, domino players, jazz musicians, and a young woman absorbed in a good summer book. The result is a love letter to Hamilton Heights.

This exhibition is presented by Creative Art Works.