Central Park

The Daily Plant : Thursday, September 26, 2002

PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART FORM CELEBRATED THIS MONTH

If you've visited the Arsenal Gallery in the past few days, you would have seen 23 photographs decorating the white walls. Following the tremendous success of this summer's exhibit entitled "Queens Jewels: A History of Queens Park," this exhibit that opened to the public on September 24 will run until Thursday, October 24.

The title of the Arsenal Gallery exhibit is "Aperture at 50: A celebration of Photography." Aperture Magazine is a world-renowned publisher of photography and was founded in 1952. It is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a multi-site citywide exhibition. One of over 40 sites to display photographs is the Arsenal Gallery.

The entire exhibit features over 170 images from photographers published by Aperture over the past fifty years. Fifty New York venues, from historical landmarks to museums to city parks, will be represented in photographs hung in the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, as well as City Hall, Rockefeller Center, Ellis Island, Baruch College, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center. The artists featured include Helen Chadwick, Bruce Davidson, Barbara Morgan, Andres Serrano, and Brian Weil.

The Arsenal Gallery is presenting a preview exhibition of 23 images by some of the finest contemporary photographers of our time. While these images will be on view until October 24, the other sites will be open to the public from October 21 to November 3. The photographic selections at the Arsenal highlight the natural world, parks, and children at play. Visitors will enjoy such notable works as Eugene Smith's touching "The Walk to Paradise Garden," Leonard Freed's celebrated shot of ecstatic children in a hydrant's spray entitled "Summer in Harlem," and six Central Park images by Bruce Davidson. Other artists displaying their work in celebration of Aperture's fiftieth anniversary are, Letizia Battaglia, Virginia Beahan and Laura McPhee, William Eggleston, Flor Garduno, David Goldblatt, David Graham, Robert Glen Ketchum, Alan MacWeeney, Ray. K. Metzker, Pedro Meyer, Barbara Morgan, Ferdinando Sianna, Walter TutsiWai BigBee, Nick Waplington, and Garry Winogrand.

The exhibition in its entirety will be able to be viewed at Sotheby's New York from January 6 to January 31, 2003 and is entitled "Photography Past/Forward: Aperature at 50."

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Thursday, October 5, 1989)
FORESTRY "SWAT" TEAM BATTLES HUGO'S HAVOC IN PUERTO RICO

American Airlines flight 1470 from San Juan, Puerto Rico was three minutes early when it touched down at Kennedy Airport noon Saturday. As passengers streamed into the terminal, nine strapping, ragged-looking men, carrying sleeping mats and duffel bags, brought up the rear. The group of Parks Climbers and Pruners were greeted by cheering family members and Parkies, including Queens Parks Commissioner William H. Cook, holding colorful signs that read "There goes Hugo! Here Come Our Heroes!" and "Superheroes."

Richard Murphy, Ralph Alfano, Donald Breen, Brian Goscicki, Christopher Mullusky, Thomas Neumann, Frank Rosato, John Sharp, and Ronald Shirlaw had spent seven days in Puerto Rico helping residents recover from the ravages of Hurricane Hugo, which ripped through the Caribbean island, uprooting trees, knocking off power and water lines and causing more than a billion dollars worth of damage.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY
''There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot,
but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence,
transform a yellow spot into the sun.''
Pablo Picasso
(1881 - 1973)

Know Before You Go

Harlem Meer Center (formerly Lasker Rink)

Harlem Meer Center