Art in the Parks

In Beacon, a profile of a child’s face represents the flame of a candle. The base of the sculpture forms the stylized candle, and the face rises from it, driving out the darkness with their light, serving as a guiding beacon through life’s troubles. Though made of bronze, a hard material, the sculpture is designed to form a light, wispy profile. It is inspired by the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote, which would be on a plaque accompanying the sculpture: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

This installation consists of a pair of playful benches crafted in the shape of bananas, one large and one small, serving both as functional seating. By creating a welcoming space for rest and contemplation, this installation becomes a focal point for community engagement, fostering social interaction and unity.

This exhibition is presented by the Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District.

Artist and activist Sari Carel’s A More Perfect Circle, curated by Jennifer McGregor, connects our encounters with disposable objects to the wider systems that fill our lives with waste. A More Perfect Circle is informed by research the artist conducted in collaboration with Nicholas Hoynes, a PhD student in Environmental Sociology at NYU. Carel and Hoynes surveyed employees and patrons of local coffee shops about their daily experience with single-use objects. The sculptures featured in this exhibition are modeled after stacked disposable coffee cups and are accompanied by ceramic pieces in the shape of plastic cup covers that are glazed to evoke pie charts drawn from Carel and Hoynes’ research.

This exhibition is presented by KODA in partnership with Greenpoint Library and the Environmental Education Center.

Sing for Hope places artist-designed pianos throughout NYC’s parks and public spaces for anyone and everyone to play. The pianos bring individuals and communities together in an open festival of art for all. After their time on the streets, Sing for Hope transports the instruments to NYC public schools, where they become hubs for Sing for Hope’s ongoing creative programs and enrich students’ lives for years to come. The pianos can be played at various sites across the city, including four Parks sites. For more information and a list of locations visit Sing for Hope’s Pianos webpage.

This exhibition is present by Sing for Hope.

With Lost Boys, Claiborne challenges established notions of cultural legibility and encourages viewers to delve deeper into the origins, embodiment, and sufficiency of Blackness, including its impact on mental health. Text superimposed upon the repeated face of an unidentified Black male youth takes center stage, sourced from a photograph captured in Harlem, New York during the early 1900s. The repeated image of the unidentified young boy carries a symbolic weight, representing not only the individual but also a broader collective experience. Painted in vibrant shades of blue and black, the boy's direct gaze confronts the viewer while the repeated patterning and overlay of text pushes and pulls the colorful faces between differing levels of visibility.

This exhibition is presented by BRIC and the Prospect Park Alliance.

Nicholas Galanin created this work with the same steel tubing used to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall, also echoing its 30-foot height. The metal was cut and reassembled to spell out LAND in a format reminiscent of Robert Indiana’s 1966 sculpture, LOVE. The anti-climbing plate seen atop the border wall appears here on the upper letters, and the text repeats in four layers to create a dynamic, open structure. As our point of view changes, the text shifts between legibility and abstraction.

This exhibition is presented by Public Art Fund.

This fence-based mural depicts the people, places, and activities that are the heartbeat of the community. Inspiration for this mural comes from the youth in Brownsville who wanted to see a piece of art that reflects the things they love to see in their community. They mentioned how seeing elderly people motivated them, their love for activities like skelly, and identified areas of the community that brought back childhood memories. All of this is captured within layers of the artwork.

The Beat of Brownsville was designed in collaboration with Brownsville Community Justice Center’s Youth Leadership Council (YLC), a group of youth leaders from ten different NYCHA developments who organize to improve neighborhood safety.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Brownsville Community Justice Center.