Art in the Parks

Artist Shahzia Sikander has created a major new project on the theme of women and justice for a multimedia exhibition in Madison Square Park and the nearby Courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The exhibition marks the first collaboration between the Conservancy and courthouse. Across the two sites, Sikander unites female figures and motifs from nature and confronts symbols of power and justice to examine long-standing practices and attitudes impeding the advancement of women.

This exhibition is presented by Madison Square Park Conservancy.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line and Audemars Piguet Contemporary.

The Wall of Silence was conceived of by photographer Donna Ferrato as a platform for provocation and education—a place to confront the realities of gender-based violence and to stand up for those who’ve been criminalized for defending themselves against their abusers. Surrounded by New York City’s highest courts, it asks to be seen and for you to see yourself within it. 

This exhibition is presented by the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence.

For the High Line, Beier realizes Women & Children, a fountain composed of found bronze sculptures of women and children. The statues range in style from classical to contemporary, and all depict women and children in the nude, as has been Western art-historical convention. Water streams from the eyes of the sculptures, creating cartoonish tears that point to the fragility projected onto women and children as subjects. The work’s title echoes the phrase “women and children first,” a Victorian-era maritime code of conduct wherein women and children, assumed to be the weakest aboard, should be the first saved in a perilous situation. 

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.

This exhibition is presented by Project Backboard.

This mural is in commemoration of Puerto Rican-American heritage. It was made using crocheted contributions by over 100 artists from around the world ranging in age from 9 to 91 years old, linking the community together one stitch at a time.

You know who I am is a large-scale cast bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty wearing various cartoonish masks. The masks are stylized portraits of individuals whose personal experiences of freedom are directly connected to the United States. The masks will change every two months, representing six different people over the course of the exhibition. The work stands twenty-three feet above the High Line on the Northern Spur Preserve. From this vantage, visitors can also see the original Lady Liberty to the south in New York Harbor.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.

El Taller Latino Americano has had a gallery since its inception in 1979. It was originally named for Pedro Arachanjo, whose book “Tent of Miracles” encapsulated El Taller’s mission: to be a laboratory for learning and for cultivating creative expression through words, artwork, music, as well as other forms of culture that would add to, and reinterpret the meaning of community in New York City. El Taller rededicated the gallery in 1996 for resident artist, Grady Alexis, a young promising Haitian-American painter was killed in 1991. This exhibition showcases the diversity of artists in El Taller’s long history. It is a small collection of immigrant and native artists, that represent a wider range of ages and career stages who are primarily NYC-based or who had been at the time of their original exhibitions at one of El Taller’s site that span this 43-year history.

This exhibition is presented by El Taller Latino Americano.

This simple but moving community involved project offers positive opportunities to reaffirm Peace. The Peace Pole movement is decades old and consists of a simple vertical white post with writing on all sides in multiple languages. Each inscription says, "May Peace Prevail On Earth.”

This exhibition is presented by Penington Friends House and Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association.