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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2022

Manhattan

Photo: Photo by Liz Ligon, courtesy of Friends of the High Line

Emlyn Taveras, High Line Teen Staff and Hudson Guild Teens, Chelsea Youth Advocacy and Beautification Project
June 11, 2022 to September 11, 2022
Penn South Playground, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

The culminating visual response to identified community needs, the Chelsea Youth Advocacy and Beautification Project triptych encourages mental wellness, inclusion, and community connection. Part of the ongoing Placekeeping initiative (est. 2021), these murals were collaboratively conceptualized by High Line and Hudson Guild youth staff through workshops led by Kathleena Howie, with final illustrations by Emlyn Taveras, and quotes Erykah Badu’s song “Tyrone,” 1997.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line and Hudson Guild.

Image credit: Courtesy of the NYC AIDS Memorial

Steven Evans, Songs for a Memorial
June 1, 2022 to September 6, 2022
NYC AIDS Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:
Songs for a Memorial (2020-22) consists of 12 text-based, polychromatic, LED sculptures designed to evoke neon signage and the dynamic energy of nightlife, creating vibrant layers of color throughout the Memorial. This work exists at the intersection of language and memory by way of Evans’ appropriation of titles from songs tied inextricably to the period surrounding the onset and height of the AIDS epidemic. By juxtaposing multiple song titles across genres, Evans weaves narratives of both individual and collective memory and history that simultaneously speak to complex relationships between loss, love, sadness, joy and celebration.

This exhibition is presented by the NYC AIDS Memorial.

Alice Mizrachi, Renaissance Women
September 25, 2021 to August 31, 2022
Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

Intimate and low profile to allow visitors to engage at eye level and to gather around it, Renaissance Women honors the women of the Harlem Renaissance. It takes on a decidedly feminine form representing vocalists like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne; visual artists like Elizabeth Catlett and Augusta Savage; and writers like Dorothy West and Zora Neale Hurston. It will be the viewer’s choice as to which women they see reflected in the sculpture.

Image courtesy of El Taller Latino Americano

Bernardo Palumbo, Atu Ram, Early Rudolph, Urban Rhythms
July 1, 2022 to August 31, 2022
Anibal Aviles Playground, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

The city is a collage for all of the senses. Shapes, colors, sounds movements and textures pass by us and us by them as we sit, walk and play within our landscape. These three artists share a passion for medium, yet with unique sensibilities and a long-term commitment to Northern Manhattan’s cityscape. One can see how each uses color and texture to express that feeling in their respective works. They are examples for the way that sounds can be expressed visually. And how this can be an act full of wonder and play.

This exhibition is presented by El Taller Latino Americano.

Image credit: Photo by Argenis Apolinario

Cecile Chong, EL DORADO – The New Forty Niners
November 3, 2021 to August 24, 2022
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

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. 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. Consisting of 100 metallic and brightly-colored sculptures arranged in a circle on the lawn, the sculptures are modeled after tightly swaddled babies, or “guaguas,” that the artist saw while living in Ecuador. Forty-nine sculptures are gold, referring to the 49% of New Yorkers who speak a language other than English at home. This fifth and final iteration stands on a platform that represents the 17 United Nations sustainability goals.

Image credit: Photo by Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of Public Art Fund

Gillian Wearing, Diane Arbus
October 20, 2021 to August 14, 2022
Central Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) is one of several artists Gillian Wearing counts among her key influences, or “spiritual family.” The celebrated New York photographer, who took many of her best-known images in Central Park, nevertheless remains a surprising choice for a bronze monument. Wearing’s statue draws attention to the fact that few women are represented in this way, and even fewer visual artists. Who gets to be memorialized has become a lively public debate. Diane Arbus, installed temporarily at the entrance to Central Park, is one artist’s tribute to another. The presentation of the sculpture is unconventional: there’s no pedestal, the figure simply stands on the pavement. Like a photograph come to life, Wearing captures Arbus as she might have appeared, holding her distinctive Mamiyaflex camera, gaze fixed on her next subject.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund.

Image Credit: Image courtesy of Project Backboard

Faith Ringgold, Windows of the Wedding #1: Woman
August 9, 2021 to August 8, 2022
St. Nicholas Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:
This basketball court mural is based on Faith Ringgold’s 1974 work, Windows of the Wedding #1: Woman. After exploring abstract shapes in the 1970s, Ringgold received acclaim for her narrative quilts created in in the 1980s. The basketball courts at St. Nicholas Park begin as an abstract pattern, but as hundreds, if not thousands, of stories play out across the courts surface it will be transformed into something of living narrative quilt. Ringgold was born in Harlem in 1930 and graduated from City College of New York (adjacent to the St. Nicholas Park).

This exhibition is presented by Project Backboard.

Naomi Lawrence, Flowers of Turtle Island
August 25, 2021 to August 4, 2022
Eugene McCabe Field, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

Flowers of Turtle Island is a fiber art installation depicting a field of wild flowers that appear to be growing from the ground up so that when you walk past you will feel as if you are walking through an oversized field of flowers.

All the flower species are native to North America, in particular the northeastern part of the country. The larger flowers, lady slipper orchids and coneflowers, will loom overhead in bright colors of pink, yellow, and purple, with several shades of green.

Flowers of Turtle Island is installed on the fence that surrounds Eugene McCabe Field, adjacent to the elevated train tracks on Park Avenue.

The beauty of flowers connects people to nature and this installation will also inform people with a series of artist-guided tours. Many flowers that we now consider native to New York and New England were brought here by European settlers. The artist researched what was growing here prior to colonization to determine which species should be included. Echinacea, Coneflowers, Bluebells, Oypripedium, Lady Slipper, Aster, Goldenrod Solidago, Sanguinaria Bloodroot, Sunflowers, Violets, Rosehips all grew wild on Turtle Island, the name that the Lenape Indians used to identify the region.

Flowers of Turtle Island is made possible in part with funding from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by LMCC. Additional funding provided by the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance.

Image credit: courtesy of the artist

Jon Isherwood, Broadway Blooms
July 15, 2021 to July 14, 2022
Broadway Malls, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:

Broadway Blooms is a series of eight marble sculptures installed at eight major intersections along Broadway starting at 64th Street (Dante Park/Lincoln Center), then 72nd, 79th, 96th, 103rd, 117th, 148th, and ending at 157th Street. The artist chose the floral forms for their universality and accessibility. Carved from seven different types of marble, their ephemerality is contrasted against the durability of the hard stone.

This exhibition is presented by the Broadway Mall Association and Morrison Gallery.

Image courtesy of Gotham to Go

Julio Valdez, I Can’t Breathe
July 24, 2021 to July 10, 2022
Collyer Brothers Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

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

Description:
I Can't Breathe is produced from a series of 6 drawings by East Harlem based artist Julio Valdez. Inspired by the images of racial injustice that have collectively entered our minds through the media over the past year. The drawings take on a transparency of almost impressionistic quality rendered with grey tones and fluid circular lines. This allover imagery reminds us the importance of not only reacting to news of injustices, but to also reflect and remember that as a community, we can overcome and reveal the creative potential in all of us, the human family.

The installation will honor Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others, it is imperative that we continue to move the conversation forward.

I Can’t Breathe is made possible in part with funding from LMCC and Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional funding provided by the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance.

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