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AccessibilityArt 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.
Public Art Map and Guide
Find out which current exhibits are on display near you, and browse our permanent monument collection.
Search Current and Past Exhibits
2024
Manhattan
The Black Fives Foundation, New York Rens Commemorative Court
June 26, 2024 to June 25, 2025
Howard Bennett Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
The mural honors the legendary New York Rens, formed in Harlem in 1923 as the first Black-owned, all-Black, fully professional basketball team in history. From their debut on November 3, 1923 through 1949 when they dissolved, the Rens annually scheduled 130 games on average, winning 85%, the equivalent of an NBA team winning 70 games a season for 25 years in a row. Yet, there was no site in Harlem that commemorated and celebrated this Hall of Fame team, until now.
Na Chainkua Reindorf, Gaze
June 25, 2024 to June 24, 2025
Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Gaze depicts a stylized eye which is a recurring symbol in Reindorf’s work. Typically shown as a canton in the upper left quadrant of her flag paintings, the unblinking eye also shows up within the paintings in unexpected ways, alongside female figures whose only distinct facial feature are unblinking eyes which stare back at the audience. Considering how female bodies can especially be objectified in and outside of art, the eye is intentionally repeated across Reindorf’s works to provide the depicted female figures an opportunity to confront the audience as well as counteract the prevalent male gaze.
This exhibition is presented by Glossier.
Marcus Brown, American Gold: A Ship of Human Bondage
June 19, 2024 to June 18, 2025
Albert Capsouto Park, Manhattan
American Gold: A Ship of Human Bondage is an Augmented Reality (AR) installation based on slave ships and enslaved people. The installation describes the captives as figures made of gold. American Gold aims to draw attention to the monetary value of captives and the inhumane treatment of African captives. American Gold makes the slave ship an almost invisible structure that floats above the viewer, giving the viewer a glimpse of how many people were squeezed into a slaving vessel from below. The installation is part of a larger series of art installations about slavery called Slavery Trails, placed at historical sites throughout the United States.
Immanuel Oni, Halo
June 22, 2024 to June 15, 2025
M'finda Kulunga Garden, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
At night, African-Americans during the 1800s were required to carry a candle or lantern on the street after curfew in order for people/police to see them. This was known as the "lantern law". This project reclaims this archaic form of surveillance by illuminating Black spaces, starting with the M Finda Kalunga Garden. Using existing infrastructure, the artwork embeds symbols and narratives into and around the perimeter. Like a halo, a decorated light shade is wrapped around a lightpost emanating light, African textile patterns, names of those buried or other related text. The fencing also portrays African symbols connecting it to the other Chamber's Street Burial Ground. Information such as maps are integrated to show other potential sites of remembrance, like the Freeman Alley.
Teresa Solar-Abboud, Birth of Islands
July 13, 2024 to June 15, 2025
High Line, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Birth of Islands, is composed of slick, blade-like foam-coated resin elements that emanate outward from the pores of a muddy, gray ceramic stump. When visiting New York, Solar-Abboud was struck by the landscape—building after building rising from the soil in a fight for prominence, just as vegetation in the forest combats for sunlight in order to survive. Birth of Islands refers to this competitive ecosystem, while also evoking human anatomy: two yellow, tongue-like emanations have seemingly tunneled their way from underground onto the High Line. The forms are spoon-like in their appearance, concave or convex, depending on one’s vantage point. The result appears simultaneously post-human and primordial, sophisticated and elementary—a representation of our own unending transformation alongside nature's ever evolving state. This exhibition is presented by the High Line.
Oliver Lee Jackson, A Journey
June 14, 2024 to May 25, 2025
The High Line, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
The works on view on the High Line were produced by the artist for this exhibition. Since 2020 Jackson has constructed several monumental, slotted steel sculptures, largely based on smaller works of his from the late 1990s. The artist honors his utilitarian material, and yet the painted, cut, and pockmarked surfaces animate the sculptures beyond their material properties. On view at the Western Rail Yards, Oliver Lee Jackson’s energetic work complements the section’s simple gravel pathway and original self-seeded, wild landscape.
This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.
Jerome Haferd, Aleia
May 24, 2024 to May 23, 2025
Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Aleia marks the second phase of interactive public artworks for the Culture, Creativity, and Care initiative by Harlem Grown. These public artworks play an important role in the community, doubling as spaces for respite, gathering, and connection. Aleia, a name that has multicultural origins meaning “ascendant”, and “exalted,” was chosen for the piece, which sits high atop the Mt. Morris Acropolis at the center of Marcus Garvey Park.
The main structure is shaped and sits atop a 32-foot semi-circular stage. Inspired by Sankofa’s modular system, the design conceptually breaks apart and reaches out, allowing for several pieces of Aleia to form a meandering Storywalk of steel totems that lead park goers up the stairs to the new installation. The centerpiece of the bright and youthful design are five paintings by the Harlem-based artist, Thomas Heath.
This exhibition is sponsored by Harlem Grown’s Culture Creativity & Care Initiative.
Bruno Catalano, Travel to New York
May 18, 2024 to May 17, 2025
E. 34th to E. 39th Streets
Park Avenue Malls, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
This exhibition of nine monumental sculptures features new bronze and marble pieces from French sculptor Bruno Catalano‘s "Travellers" series. The works pay particular attention to the relationship between sculpture and the textiles, folds, and colors that are key features of Catalano’s work. Models of bags, luggage and suitcases, as well as garments, and even the artist's clay-covered aprons allow the public a view behind the scenes of creation.
This exhibition is presented by Galeries Bartoux, Patrons of Park Avenue, and the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association.
Lee Tal, Blooming Reflections
May 11, 2024 to May 10, 2025
Stuyvesant Square, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
A series of five sculptures placed throughout Stuyvesent Square, Blooming Reflections celebrates indigenous plants and highlights the efforts of community members to bring these types of flora back to the park. The sculptures are silhouetted depictions of several species of flowers: Iris Versicolor, Purple Clematis, Smooth White Beardtongue, Swamp Rose Mallow, and Yellow Trout Lily. Artist Lee Tal created the works in polished aluminum that reflects the natural surroundings and the viewing audience, reminding us of our interconnectedness. The sculptures are designed to engage the community with beauty but also provide new information on the value of indigenous plantings.
This exhibition is presented by the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association.
Tishan Hsu, car-grass-screen-2 and car-body-screen-2
May 31, 2024 to April 28, 2025
The High Line, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
For the High Line, Hsu presents car-grass-screen-2 and car-body-screen-2, two biomorphic forms constructed out of resin-wrapped foam. The cars’ shapes, with their soft edges and curved surfaces, appear entirely organic but for their glitching, screen-like skins. In the skin of car-grass-screen-2, Hsu includes a scannable QR code, which directly connects the sculptural form to both the virtual and physical realm—via the interface of the phone and the viewer’s hand holding the phone. Scanning the code prompts a video that echoes the grass and perforated metal screen featured on the sculpture’s surface, layered with peephole-style footage of grass, soil, and human skin and orifices. The ability to change the content connected to the QR code from virtual space reinforces Hsu’s interest in hybridity, in which the work is both fixed and open-ended, physical and cyber.
This exhibition is presented by the High Line.
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