Art in the Parks

​Five sculptures made of recycled industrial tires, each of which is carved and painted with gold and silver, serve as memorials for those migrants who deserve to be remembered with respect and dignity. The pre-Hispanic iconography honors an ancestral culture and rich civilization that still has much to offer today. Tractor tires act as reminders of the laborers from the south who work the land; public transport tires that simultaneously hold memory of so many hopes and griefs. These tires are a metaphor of cycles traveled. Through this exhibition, the artist aims to dignify the contribution of millions of migrants who are not only laborers who were forced to leave their homes, but also humans who carry personal and cultural baggage that enriches the places they reach.

This exhibition is supported by Fundación Andrade, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Evelyn and Dick Belger, Kansas City and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Additional support provided by Ciinova, PPG Comex, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de Mexico, and Maestro Dobel Tequila.

This exhibition is presented by The Sculpture Committee of The Fund of Park Avenue.

Harlem Sculpture Gardens is a multi-site exhibition, curated to spread joy and beauty within the Harlem community. The exhibition includes artworks by a diverse array of artists working in a variety of media. Artists exhibiting in Morningside Park include Margaret Roleke, Miguel Otero Fuentes, Jaleeca Yancy, Peter Miller, Zura Bushurishvili, the team of Carol Diamond and Ben LaRocco, and Reuben Sinha. In St. Nicholas Park, artworks by Luke Schumacher, the team of Felipe Jacome and Svetlana Onipko, Carole Eisner, Dianne Smith, the team of Dario Mohr and Cody Umans, and Heather Williams are on view. Further uptown, Jackie Robinson Park hosts works by Zura Bushurishvili, Vera Tineo, ByeongDon Moon, Iliana Emilia Garcia, Kraig Blue, and Michael Poast.

This exhibition is presented by West Harlem Art Fund and New York Artists Equity Association.

This exhibition showcases a 65-panel crocheted mural featuring the diverse people and occupations that comprise this Harlem neighborhood as well as highlighting the natural beauty of the flowers, water fauna and sea creatures in our East River waterway.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the East River Esplanade and Memorial Sloan Kettering.

The concept for this artwork is a colorful background representing the human impact on the environment with superimposed silhouettes of the absence of animals. This mural was part of Korea Art Forum’s 2023 Shared Dialogue Shared Space program, with a theme of an Alternative Manhattan Project, which brings together artists who will be presenting their community-oriented and thought-provoking works of participatory art to engage the community in conversations on peacebuilding. The artists imagine an alternative history, inquiring what if peace-building efforts in the early 1940s were carried out through art and human interactions instead of the development of weapons of mass destruction.

This exhibition is presented by Korea Art Forum.

This piece depicts the legend of the alligator in the NYC sewers. It deals with two interesting aspects of our world; our need for gods, myths, and legends much like any other civilization prior to ours, and our habit of creating invasive species by moving animals from their natural habitats to human environments.

This exhibition is presented by Union Square Partnership and Mollbrinks Gallery.

For the third High Line Plinth commission, Pamela Rosenkranz presents Old Tree, a bright red-and-pink sculpture that animates myriad historical archetypes wherein the tree of life connects heaven and earth. The tree’s sanguine color resembles the branching systems of human organs, blood vessels, and tissue, inviting viewers to consider the indivisible connection between human and plant life. Old Tree evokes metaphors for the ancient wisdom of human evolution as well as a future in which the synthetic has become nature. On the High Line—a contemporary urban park built on a relic of industry—Old Tree raises questions about what is truly “artificial” or “natural” in our world. Made of man-made materials and standing at a height of 25 feet atop the Plinth, it provides a social space, creating shade while casting an ever-changing, luminous aura amid New York’s changing seasons.

This exhibition is presented by the Friends of the High Line.

For the High Line, Kiwanga presents On Growth, a sculpture of a fern encased in glass. The multi-faceted case is constructed from dichroic glass, which captures and transforms the light that passes through it, changing tone and color as it’s viewed from different vantage points. The work references Wardian cases, a predecessor of the terrarium, which were used to transport uprooted plants to Europe from overseas, allowing those species to continue to thrive amid London’s polluted air in the late 19th century. These enclosures resembled jewelry cases at the time and, similarly, often protected treasures from distant lands. On Growth draws on the colonial histories of institutional and commercial botanic nurseries that heavily influenced the scientific understanding of plants and horticulture of today.

This exhibition is presented by Friends of the High Line.