Photograph courtesy Elizabeth Lutz, Downtown Alliance
Although it may not feel like it, spring has officially sprung. Get outside and enjoy the warm weather by visiting these new outdoor art installations, festivals, and exhibitions. From experiencing the newly opened Hudson Yards to watching a live stream of Earth from space on the Lower East Side, read more for not to miss art this month in New York City!
1. The Shed at Hudson Yards
The Shed at Hudson Yards will be officially open to the public on April 5, 2019 as a new indoor/outdoor center for the arts but we will be at the opening ceremony this morning (stay tuned for interior photos!). This groundbreaking structure designed by Diller, Scofio + Renfro, Lead Architect, and Rockwell Group, Collaborating Architect, will adapt and transform to accommodate all disciplines and all audiences.
The opening programming of The Shed features two art exhibits, an original musical performance and an original play. Soundtrack of America, a five night concert series will christen The McCourt with its premiere on April 5th. The series was created by Steven McQueen and explores the influence of African American music on contemporary culture. The art exhibitions include Reich Richter Part, an immersive live performance installation which explores the relationship of visual art and music, and an installation of new work by artist Trisha Donelly. Inside the Griffin Theater there will be performances of Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, a spoken and sung performance piece written by Anne Carson and starring Ben Whishaw. Future performances include a staged concert by Björk and Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise, a Kung Fu musical based on audition footage of Bruce Lee and written by the writers of the animated movie Kung Fu Panda. The only permanent installation at The Shed is In Front of Itself by Lawrence Wiener. Weiner’s piece is a site-specific installation embedded in The Shed’s plaza.
The Shed is the latest structure to open at Hudson Yards, following the official grand opening of the new neighborhood on the far West Side of Manhattan, along with the opening of the Vessel.
2. Holocaust-era Freight Car Installation at Museum of Jewish Heritage
In Battery City Park at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, an actual artifact from the early twentieth century is now on display. This freight car is not a replica and was actually used by the German National Railway during World War II to transport soldiers, prisoners of war, and then Jews to killing centers.
The freight car is an element of the upcoming exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. which will open to the public on May 8, 2019 and include over 700 artifacts from World War II never before seen in the United States.
3. Simone Leigh: Brick House on The High Line
Simone Leigh, Brick House, 2019. A High Line Plinth commission. On view June 2019 – September 2020. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy the High Line
Located on the High Line at the Spur, at 30th Street and 10th Avenue will soon stand Brick House, a sixteen-foot-tall bronze bust of a black woman. Her head is adorned with an afro and cornrow braids along her hairline. The figure will stand tall atop the Plinth, with an unwavering gaze on 10th Avenue. Brick House is the first work in the series Anatomy of Architecture by Simone Leigh. The series of sculptures will intermingle architectural forms from West Africa to the American South with the human body.
The Spur does not open until June 5th (stay tuned for a behind the scenes construction tour of the Spur and The High Line for Untapped Cities Insiders) but this art installation is currently visible from the street.
4. Alicja Kwade: Parapivot at the MET Roof Garden
Beginning on April 16th, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden Commission will present Alicja Kwade’s Parapivot. Alicja Kwade is a Berlin-based artist who seeks to “heighten both the mystery and absurdity of the human condition in order to enhance our powers of self-reflection.” Kwade has created two sculptures for The Met made out of steel and stone to capture a miniature solar system.
This piece will be on display on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden until October 27, 2019. Parapivot will be Kwade’s first solo exhibition at a museum in the United States.
5. Downtown Alliance: Prismatica
Photograph courtesy Elizabeth Lutz, Downtown Alliance
Prismatica is an interactive art trail of 25 kaleidoscopes each standing 7’6″ tall in Lower Manhattan. The prisms are covered in a dichroic film that reflects all the colors of the rainbow depending on the type of light and angle of viewing. Prismatica is displayed in three privately owned public plazas at 75 Wall Street, 77 Water St, and 32 Old Slip.
The exhibition was originally created for Montréal’s main entertainment district, Quartier des Spectacles. Prismatica will be up until April 21, 2019.
6. Leak Lines at Fort Tilden
Leak Lines by artist Aaron Asis in Fort Tilden is a visually striking installation meant to draw attention to the problems, as well as the beauty, of the gallery space where The Rockaway Artists Alliance hosts art exhibitions and performances. The art piece is made up of a series of yellow cords that connect existing overhead features of the gallery to ground mounted anchors beneath a central skylight. The path of the tensioned cords are meant to draw eyes up to the leaking roof and inspire visitors to contemplate the building itself as art. It is reminiscent of a previous piece by Asis inside the Green-Wood Cemetery Chapel.
The RAA hopes this project will help “preserve the historic building and show its significance in the community.” Repairs for the roof are being partially funded by a contribution from the Jamaica Bay – Rockaway Parks Conservancy, and this installation will hopefully inspire more community members to donate to the RAA’s Our Roof Leaks campaign. An opening reception for Leak Lines will be held on Saturday, April 6, 2019, at 6pm in RAA’s sTudio 7 gallery. There will be live music and refreshments available.
The exhibition will be open to the public starting until April 15, 2019.
7. blu Marble: Live Images of Earth from Space on the Lower East Side
In 1972 as the three man crew of Apollo 17 rocketed towards the moon, they took a moment to look back towards Earth and take a picture. That picture, taken as the astronauts set out on the last manned mission to the moon, would become one of the most widely reproduced images in human history. The debut of Blue Marble, as the photograph has been named, changed the way we view our little blue planet in the context of the vast universe. In his latest public art piece, now on view at 159 Ludlow street in New York City’s Lower East Side, artist, activist and designer Sebastian Errazuriz pays homage to the iconic photograph with a new high tech installation titled blu Marble, created with support from e-vapor brand blu as part of the company’s new campaign, “Pledge World by blu.”. Errazuriz’s blu Marble is a series of images of Earth live-streamed from a NASA satellite and displayed on a custom-made 20-foot LED screen that stands in an empty lot.
The live streamed images of Earth from space will be displayed on the Lower East Side of New York City 24/7 until April 14th, 2019.
8. Dizzillusions: Times Square Midnight Moment
Photograph Courtesy of Ka-Man Tse for Times Square Arts
Every night from 11:57pm until midnight a digital art exhibition takes over the giant electronic billboards in Times Square. Started in 2012, Midnight Moment has become the world’s largest and longest-running digital art exhibition with an estimated annual viewership of 2.5 million people. Every night this month Dizzillusions by multimedia artist RaFia Santana will present in Times Square at midnight.
Dizzillusions is a self-portrait, digitally painted and animated in a looping video. The artist’s head floats against a background of psychedelic waves and vibrating, color-shifting shapes. RaFia attempts to capture the overwhelming nature of Times Square in their work, “With my work, I provide a stimulating respite for those struggling with the normalization of hyper-productivity and the exhausting capitalization of distraction.”
Dizzillusions will be on display the entire month of April.
9. #ILO100 Art Walk
Photograph Courtesy of Street Art for Mankind, Art by Victor Ash
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has partnered with the Street Art for Mankind (SAM) to create murals around the United Nations headquarters in Midtown, Manhattan. These murals will inspire ILO’s key themes of “decent work” for all, and crafting a better “future of work” in celebration of 100 years of the International Labor Organization.
Five murals will be created from through April 8th to emphasize eco-friendly jobs, youth employment, gender equality in the workplace, and child labor. You can join see the work on your own or by registering for an Art Walk on April 9th, from 1-3 pm.
10. Freedom from Fear/Yellow Bowl Project
Photograph by Setsuko Winchester
A new exhibition at FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island directly challenges Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy. The Freedom from Fear/Yellow Bowl Project ceramic artist and journalist Setsuko Winchester examines the racial and cultural stereotypes of WWII, and the relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans following FDR’s Executive Order 9066 in 1942. Each of the 120 yellow tea bowls that make up the installation represent 1,000 of the 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated in ten U.S. concentration camps across the country. The project asks “whose fear?” and “whose freedoms?” get protected in times of war and beyond. The bowls have travelled the country with Winchester as she photographed them at the site of every former camp.
The installation will be onsite and free and open to the public from Friday, April 12th through Sunday, April 14th at the Louis Kahn-designed park. The artist will give a free, public talk and tour of her installation on Sunday, April 14 at 2pm.
11. DUMBO Open Studios
Photograph courtesy Art in DUMBO
On Saturday, April 27 and Sunday, April 28 artists throughout DUMBO will open their studio doors to the public for a rare viewing. Art in DUMBO presents DUMBO Open Studios, a weekend for New Yorkers to visit Brooklyn and engage directly with both upcoming and esteemed artists. In addition to local DUMBO-based artists, artists in DUMBO’s four artist residency programs – Art in General’s Artist in Residence Program, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program, Triangle NYC – will also participate, as will the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture’s DUMBO-based sculpture students.
Hours for DUMBO Open Studios will be from 1-6 PM on April 27 and 28.
12. The Value of Sanctuary: Building a House Without Walls
A Gathering of Utopian Benches by Francis Cape photograph courtesy of Julie Robinson
The Value of Sanctuary: Building a House Without Walls investigates the current political debates in the United States on national borders, the immigration crisis, and the importance of finding refuge through the work of modern and contemporary artists. Using the sacred space of The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Morningside Heights as a canvas, this exhibition is a combination of sculpture, photography, and paintings by over 30 renowned artists.
The exhibition is currently open to the public until June 30, 2019.
13. Ecological City Mobile Mural
Mobile Mural by Earth Celebrations – Design Concept: Felicia Young, Mural Design Painting & Workshop Director, Katherine Freygang
After the city dismissed the community-engaged and approved East Side Coastal Resiliency plan (commonly known as the BIG U or the Dryline) and instead chose a plan that would build a hard edge seawall and close the current waterfront parks for four years, some community members have decided to fight back with “creative placemaking” action. Along with parades of costumed marchers and giant puppets, part of the community action involves creating a 40-foot long mobile mural that celebrates the gardens, neighborhoods, and parks of the Lower East Side waterfront including Two Bridges, Loisaida Area, and Stuyvesant Cove, and of course the river itself.
The six sections of the mural will each be dedicated to the history of a specific facet of the ESCR community vision and anyone can help register to help paint the murals throughout the month of April. You can find register for a mural painting, arts, or puppet workshop on the Ecological City website, here.
Keep reading for more ongoing art installations that are still viewable this month!
14. Bridge Over Tree at Brooklyn Bridge Park
Siah Armajani, Bridge Over Tree, 2019, photograph by Timothy Schenck, courtesy Public Art Fund, NY
SSiah Armajani’s public art installation Bridge Over Tree debuted at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1970. This month, nearly fifty years later, the piece will be on display again in a re-staging at Brooklyn Bridge Park starting February 20th. The piece blurs the line between art and architecture, as does most of Armajani’s work which consist largely of outdoor structures. Bridge Over Tree is a 91-foot-long walkway with a shingled roof and stairs at the middle that arch over a small tree. The piece, presented by the Public Art Fund, will be installed between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges on the Empire Fulton Ferry lawn. Bridge Over Tree is the only outdoor piece associated with Siah Armajani: Follow This Line, a new retrospective exhibit of Armajani’s career at the Met Breuer.
The installation will be up until September 29, 2019.
15. The Vessel
The highly anticipated beehive-shaped structure at Hudson Yards known as The Vessel opened to the public in March. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio, the massive metallic structure towers over the public plaza in front of The Shops at Hudson Yards. The Vessel is made up of 154 interconnecting flights of stairs and 80 landings, which leads to a total of about 2,500 individual steps. The first piece of the structure was put in place on April 18, 2017 and the completed structure will open to the public on Monday, March 16th. Entry will be given based on ticketed times for the first two weeks. You can reserve tickets here.
16. Mark Manders: Tilted Head
On March 6, Dutch artist Mark Manders’ largest single cast bronze sculpture will open at the Central Park entrance at 60th Street and 5th Avenue. Public Art Fund will debut Tilted Head, a 13-foot-tall human head made of clay-looking bronze, which is commissioned for Doris C. Freedman Plaza. Tilted Head is Mark Manders’ “largest single cast bronze sculpture to date” and is being brought to New York City for the first time. The mysteriously unfinished sculpture’s cracks juxtapose the tranquil expression on the head’s face.
The installation will be on display until September 1, 2019.
17. Lost and Found at Snark Park
Photograph by Noah Kalina courtesy of Snark Park/Team Camron
Snark Park is Snarkitecture’s new permanent exhibition space in Hudson Yards and its inaugural exhibition, Lost and Found, will be opening to the public on March 15. Lost and Found will “encourage visitors to lose themselves in a labyrinth of massive, inhabitable columns, some of which are large enough to occupy and many of which offer unique audible, visual, and tactile experience.” Described as a “modern-day enchanted forest,” the exhibition hopes to challenge visitors to interact with the installation and reveal secret worlds through the material changes and twists of Lost and Found. This exhibition will be one of three hosted by Snark Park this year, and will be on display through August 2019.
18. The Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden
Photograph courtesy of New York Botanical Gardens
Escape the freezing temperatures and step into an exotic, colorful world at The Orchid Show: Singapore at the New York Botanical Gardens. The Orchid Show at the NYBG premiers annually, this year being the 17th annual exhibition. Orchids from Gardens by the Bay and Singapore Botanic Gardens partnered to combine each of their iconic elements- the Supertrees of Gardens by the Bay and the Arches of Singapore Botanic Gardens’ National Orchid Garden.
The exhibition will be running until April 28, 2019.
19. Tats Cru Houston Bowery Wall Mural
Photograph by Martha Cooper, Courtesy of Goldman Properties
The Houston Bowery Wall has been a canvas for great art since the 1970s when Keith Haring painted a mural there. In the ensuing decades a variety of artists have been commissioned to leave their creative mark on the wall. The latest group to be added to this line-up of talent is the Tats Cru who debuted their mural at the end of January. According to the Bowery Boogie, the Bronx-based group is the first full graffiti crew to paint a mural on the wall. The mural, which replaces JR’s anti-gun piece, is a representation of New York City, with a special homage to the Lower East Side. Within the colorful mural you will see a nod to the history of the wall itself and a to the nearby Liz Christy Garden, the first community garden in New York City.
20. Guardians of Jackson Heights
Photograph by Annabelle Popa
PArtist Annabelle Popa drew on her childhood growing up in Jackson Heights to create Artsite’s latest mural. Popa’s Guardians of Jackson Heights was inspired by her ramblings through the gardens and courtyards of the neighborhood where she would find a variety of “guardian” animals along the pathways. The mural can be found on the wall of Image Heights Pharmacy along 76th street at 37th avenue, a location that has overhead lighting so the mural can be viewed at night, and was long enough for Popa to create a narrative that reveals itself as viewers walk along the block. The artist told the Queens Council on the Arts that she hopes the mural will inspire people in the neighborhood to use their imagination and see elements of Jackson Heights that may be overlooked.
The mural will be on display through Spring 2019.
21. What We Carry Sculpture Celebrates Immigrants in Queens
Photo courtesy Queens Council on the Arts
Queens Council on the Arts has installed its first-ever ArtSite Project in Elmhurst, featuring the work of local artist Yvonne Shortt. The sculpture, titled “What We Carry,” celebrates the immigrant culture in the Jackson Heights-area. She sat in Dunningham Park, where the sculpture is now located, to collect stories from the community. She says, “My family came by boat but I thought by listening to others I could incorporate other influences into the piece. Sitting in the park I learned how some came by plane and others by land. I think it’s so important to remember that in many cases, one doesn’t leave everything behind unless where they are leaving is worse.”
What We Carry is located in Dunningham Triangle (82nd St. &, Baxter Ave, Elmhurst, NY 11373)
22. Art in Concrete Plant Park
Photo courtesy Sohhee Oh, via NYC Parks
A relatively new NYC Parks Art in the Parks installation is up in Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. Artists Sohhee Oh, Lovie Pignata, and Moses Ros have created a three connected works: a long bench of painted concrete blocks that reference native plants from the Bronx River Foodway, geometric concrete pavers that are inspired by Bronx’ original native dwellers, the Mohegans, along with its current diverse population and colorful flags at the entrances of the a park that were designed in conjunction with the local community.
Concrete Plant Park was previously a location for Swale, the foragable floating food forest. The installation will be up until September 27, 2019.
23. OY-YO at Brooklyn Museum
Deborah Kass’ OY-YO sculpture made a splash when it debuted in Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2015. Meant to be seen in both ways, it serves as a welcome point between different cultures. OY-YO spent some time in Williamsburg after Dumbo, and has just arrived at the Brooklyn Museum, joining other works in the Something to Say exhibition of text-based works by Brooklyn-based artists Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Hank Willis Thomas.
According to the press release, “In Prospect Heights and neighboring Crown Heights, OY/YO takes on new meaning, as it speaks to the longstanding, complex, and ever-evolving social dynamics between Black, Latinx, and Jewish communities in the neighborhood. At the Brooklyn Museum, OY/YO will function as a new greeting, welcoming visitors to the museum connecting to a diverse audience, while also saying “hey” to locals.
OY-YO will be on view at Brooklyn Museum until June 30th, 2019.
24. Arlene Shechet: ‘Full Steam Ahead’ in Madison Square Park
Photo by Rashmi Gill via Madison Square Park Conservancy
Until April 28th, 2019, Madison Square Park will turn its main plaza into a sculpture court with works in wood, porcelain, and cast-iron. The site-specific installation by Arlene Shechet entitled “Full Steam Ahead” hopes to overturn the traditional notion of a sculpture court. According to the Madison Square Park Conservancy, Shechet’s work “riffs on the concept of the staid sculpture court—a mainstay of traditional museum display—as a cloistered experience.” Instead, the human-scale sculptures invite gathering, interaction and seating. Arlene Shechet stated about the project: “My hope has been to reimagine the hardscape of the Park with delight and surprise. New Yorkers rely on the sidewalks, the pavement, and the street as the core of their urban lives. Full Steam Ahead becomes a lively and human amphitheater, softening the hardscape through sculptural intervention evocative of 18th-century garden landscapes.”
25. Viewfinding in Riverside Park
Photo courtesy Sarah E. Brook
PViewfinding, a large-scale public art installation in Riverside Park by Gowanus-based artist Sarah E. Brook, will feature a series of reclaimed lumber and cast-acrylic panels, with engraved text written by 26 queer-identified poets. The acrylic material is selected for its translucency and will shift in color depending on the sunlight and time of day. The poets selected include not only established ones, but also not yet published ones as well.
Viewfinding will be located along the Hudson River in Riverside Park at 67th Street and will be up until August 22nd, 2019.
26. Dazzle Boat from Public Art Fund
Photo by Nicholas Knight courtesy of Public Art Fund
Flow Separation by New York artist Tauba Auerbach is a piece that converts the historic Fireboat John J. Harvey into what the Public Art Fund calls a “contemporary dazzle ship.” The concept of the “dazzle ship” dates back to World War I, when British painter Norman Wilkinson came up with the idea to strategically paint war ships in a way that created optical illusions that distorted the forms of the boats. Thus, they puzzled the soldiers on enemy ships who struggled to track the movements of the British ships.
2018 marks the anniversary of the end of World War I, and Auerbach’s installation prompts us to reflect upon this history. The piece evokes themes of innovation and abstraction, for Auerbach was inspired by the forms of objects as they move through water. She employed the method of transferring ink on water onto paper to achieve the pattern on the display boat.
Flow Separation will be on view through May 12, 2019 in various locations through New York Harbor.
27. James and Karla Murray’s ‘Moms-and-Pops of the L.5.S.’
Image courtesy of James and Karla MurrayJames and Karla Murray’s exhibit Moms-and-Pops of the L.E.S. is part of 10 Uniqlo Park Expressions that are on view across the city. This piece is a pop-up that debuted last month in Seward Park on the Lower East Side. Moms-and-Pops is a life-sized structure that displays four large photographs of mom-and-pop ships that have closed in the Lower East Side, such as Cup & Saucer and Chung’s Candy & Soda Stand.The installation seeks to highlight the disappearance of small businesses like bodegas, coffee shops, luncheonettes, delis, and newsstands that used to be numerous in the Lower East Side. The artists state that the piece seeks to represent the “small businesses that were common in the Lower East Side and helped bring the community together through people’s daily interactions.”A combination of metal and wooden materials makes the sculpture weather-proof and capable of lasting the entire year, perhaps a nod to the legacy of these now extinct businesses of the Lower East Side.
Moms-and-Pops of the L.E.S will be on view until June 19, 2019.
28. Rose DeSiano: ‘Absent Monuments’
Photo by Rose DeSiano Courtesy of New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
PRose DeSiano’s Absent Monuments, also part of the UNIQLO Parks Expressions Grant, is on view in Queens’ Rufus King Park until June 2019. The installation is constructed of several mirrored obelisks that feature Dutch Delft photographic tiles that explore the history of the park, as well as floral tiles inspired by Native American patterns. The mirrored surfaces confront the viewer with their reflection and subtly prompt them to reflect on their own identity and their situation within the history of Jamaica, Queens, which is full of colonization, war, abolitionism, immigration, and rural urbanization. Simultaneously, the tiles pay homage to the history of Native American people and address the patterns of cultural displacement that have occurred in Queens.
29. Zaq Landsberg: ‘Islands of the Unisphere’
Photo courtesy Zaq Landsberg via NYC Parks
Around the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park sit the sculptures that comprise Zaq Landberg’s Islands of the Unisphere (yet another of the UNIQLO Parks Expressions Grant program). The Unisphere monument, a fixture of the park, is a large sculptural globe with recognizable land masses, but without labels and borders. Landberg expanded on this famed monument by choosing islands off of the Unisphere, recreating them at scale, and placing them horizontally on the grass. The islands act as seating, stages, and meeting places, community spaces that encourage people to forge connections and reflect on the tremendous diversity of Queens.
Unisphere will be on view until June 10, 2019.
30. Shed Murals at the World Trade Center
Vesey mural by Chinon Maria and Sebastian Mitre
While construction of 2 World Trade is on hold, a collection of corrugated metal sheds housing mechanical equipment have been spruced up by artists from around the world to make the area look less like a construction zone and more like a hip pedestrian throughway. The sheds, which are bounded by Greenwich, Vesey and Church Streets and the Oculus transportation hub, feature murals by Australian illustrator Brolga, Los Angeles-based artist Todd Gray, Korean-born Joohee Park, aka Stickymonger, the husband and wife team of Chinon Maria and Sebastian Mitre, Japanese-born, New York resident Riiisa Boogie, and Bronx native Hektad. When all of the murals are complete there will be 8 colorful works to see!
31. El-Space Installation in Sunset Park
During NYCxDesign Week 2018, we were honored to be a partner of The Design Trust for Public Space in the launch of El-Space, a long-term pilot installation located under the Gowanus Expressway in Sunset Park at 36th Street and 3rd Avenue, just adjacent to Industry City. El Space is the product of a five year, critical exploration in how New York City can better activate the forgotten, unfriendly spaces beneath aging elevated infrastructure and culminates in this first pilot installation that showcases what an alternative walkway beneath the Gowanus Expressway could look like.
El-Space was designed with input from the diverse local community through charettes and on-site pop-up workshops, including work with students at Sunset Park High School and members of a Community Advisory Board.The design tests strategies for lighting, green infrastructure, and urban design for replicability, aesthetics, and of course, how the public uses and engages with it. El-Space will be installed for about a year, used to test and refine strategies for future permanent activations. For the passerby, it’s a cool visual addition to an industrial space and for the community, it has created a new meeting spot.
32. Rebecca Manson in Tribeca Park
Photo by Alexander Atkins, courtesy of the artist
In July, Tribeca Park unveiled artist Rebecca Manson’s first public sculpture, a monumental public art piece titled Come Closer and the View Gets Wider. The piece consists of thousands of handmade, glazed porcelain parts that are fused together to create a magnificent eight-foot orb.
As the title and the composition of the piece suggests, the perspective at which the piece is viewed impacts the viewer’s perception. Each of the thousands of hand-crafted parts appear rather insignificant on their own and from afar, appear to blend in to the seamless piece. Collectively, the small pieces are crucial to creating the whole piece, which stresses the impact of small things coming together to create something greater. The work will be on display until July 2019.
33. Sonic Gates Sound Sculpture Walk on Staten Island
Photograph courtesy of Design Trust for Public Space
Sonic Gates is a public art installation that features a series of eight sound sculptures and murals in Staten Island placed along the waterfront, on Bay Street, and in Tappen Park. The installation is part of a larger project titled Future Culture: Connecting Staten Island’s Waterfront by the Design Trust for Public Space in partnership with Staten Island Arts.
Works include the piece in the photograph above, which was made by Arthur Simms and is on display in the harbor off the Stapleton Esplanade, and a piece by DB Lampman, on display in Tappen Park, which consists of an assemblage of wind chimes that hang over the head of its viewers and encourages them to engage with the piece using senses besides sight.
“The Future Culture pilots will highlight our borough’s rich cultural assets, from the Bay Street commercial corridor bustling with restaurants, stores and art centers, to Parks locations where dynamic community activities are taking place, to the spectacular waterfront, where we are reflecting Staten Island’s deep maritime heritage,” said Elizabeth Bennett, Executive Director at Staten Island Arts.
Akin to the Design Trust for Public Space’s initiatives to reactive underutilized spaces under elevated highways (to be covered later in this article), this initiative looks to “inspire Staten Islanders and visitors to walk the underused pathways and unleash new possibilities for regenerating public spaces as a valuable community asset,” said Susan Chin, Executive Director, Design Trust for Public Space.
34. “River Rising/Sube el Rio” at Starlight Park
River Rising/Sube el Rio: An Exposition of Science, Art and Technology is an outdoor public art sculpture exhibition in Starlight Park in the Bronx. The exhibit opened on June 30, in a weekend of parades, dancing, and live music to celebrate the revitalization of the Bronx River and Starlight Park.
The installation is composed of eight large-scale public art sculptures by various artists curated by the Bronx River Art Center. The sculptures are meant to be enjoyed as “modern pavilions” that can be utilized as public community spaces. The sculptures pay homage to the 1918 Bronx International Exposition of Science, Arts and Industries.
The installations will be on view until June 29, 2019.
