June not only brings us an exciting crop of new outdoor art installations, but we still have several from our May list that will be up for another month or more. Here are 17 installations that should not be missed this month:
17. 190th Street Subway Tunnel
We included the 190th/191st Street subway station in our roundup of May’s top street art installations and highlighted it before as one of New York City’s deepest subway stations. Last month, the New York City DOT’s beautification project, which also includes the walkway adjacent to this particular station, took on the tunnel. Five artists were selected by the Department of Transportation and the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. Each artist was given two 200 foot sections of the wall to paint. In the end, 900 feet of tunnel was transformed.
16. Sing for Hope
Sing for Hope, the well-known non-profit organization that provides year-round outreach programs connecting artists to communities has once again brought artist-painted piano’s to our parks. From June 5th through June 21st, you will find 50 pianos in a variety of places throughout the five boroughs. Some are painted by well-known artists like Keith Haring (above photo), which is located on the Lincoln Center Plaza this year.
15. Borrowed Light
Sound has become a favored art medium, featured in the Sunset Park installation Borrowed Light by artist Sari Carel. Abstract geometric architectural forms will incorporate field recorded sounds from the park’s local fauna. The installation will be up through October 5th and will also offer a series of related community workshops and performances.
14. Fat Boy in Prospect Park
Leonard Ursachi’s oversized styrofoam head, Fat Boy, graces the lawn in front of the Litchfield Villa in Prospect Park through November 10th. The head measures 9 1/2 feet tall and is 8 1/2 feet wide. The Brooklyn Public Library will host Behind Fat Boy–a companion exhibition to this –from June 12th to September 25th. Behind Fate Boy will include original sketches of the Fat Boy series, and will be located at the Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza in the first floor lobby gallery on the southwest side of the building. Both presented by NYC Parks Art in the Parks program.
13. The Living Pyramid
Overlooking the East River from Long Island City is a thirty-foot high pyramid of planted grasses – the Socrates Sculpture Park’s latest installation, The Living Pyramid. The pyramid, which is the creation of local artist Agnes Denes, is thirty feet at its four-sided base and consists of several tons of soil holding the greens. This site specific installation will be up through August 30th. We look forward to the changing faces of this installation all along the way.
12. Panorama on the High Line
Panorama, the latest installation on the High Line, will take you from the newly opened arm of The High Line at 34th Street all the way to the 12th Street Gansevoort elevator, taking you to the newly opened Whitney. In addition to Panorama, you will find The Collectivity Project near West 30th Street. Using two tons of white legos, ten architectural firms dreamed up architectural forms in every conceivable shape, and the public is invited to recreate, reposition and pull it all apart. It is, as artist Olafur Eliasson puts it, an art installation and social experiment. Also, take a look back at the history of the High Line in a video from Blueprint.
11. Santiago Calatrava Sculptures on the Park Avenue Mall
We always look forward to what the Fund for Park Avenue will do next on the Park Avenue mall between 52nd Street and 57th Street. This year we will see seven Santiago Calatrava painted aluminum sculptures that went on view June 8th. In coordination with the Marlborough Gallery and NYC Parks, this installation will be up through November 15th. In the photo above, you will also recognize Urs Fischer’s Big Clay #4 in the plaza of the Seagram Building.
10. Drifting in Daylight, Central Park
Creative Time has put together an exhibition of eight site-specific artworks in the north end of Central Park entitled “Drifting in Daylight”. You can start at 110th Street’s Harlem Meer where you will find the S.S. Hangover, a 1934 wooden fishing boat which will provide a conceptual and performance installation. With the object being to “temp visitors to transcend their busy lives, losing themselves along a playful trail of sensory experiences”, you are sure to enjoy the other seven artworks along the way.
9. Head of Goliath, Tribeca Park
This colorful four-foot long <a href="https://This colorful four-foot long 'Head of Goliath' was created completely out of trash by Brooklyn artist Nicolas Holiber. The sculpter took a month to build and will lay on the plaza in Tribeca Park for the next few months.” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Head of Goliath was created completely out of trash by Brooklyn artist Nicolas Holiber. The sculpter took a month to build and will lay on the plaza in Tribeca Park for the next few months.
8. Pierre Huyghe at Met Museum Roof Garden
The annual summer exhibit just went up on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the third commission for French artist Pierre Huyghe at the museum. Simply titled ‘The Roof Garden Commission“, this installation will be on view through November 1st.
7. Ron English Baby Hulk at Bowery Mural
Ron English at Houston Bowery Wall. Image via New York Off Road
Ron English is no stranger to the Lower East Side. You’ll remember his ‘Temper Tot’ mural as part of the L.I.S.A. Project, completed in just nine hours as the New York area readied itself for Hurricane Sandy. Ron is back, this time on the Houston Bowery Wall with a message on American consumerism.
6. East River Flows
The installation “East River Flows” was commissioned by the Friends of the East River Esplanade and curated by the West Harlem Art Fund Founder and Director, Savona Bailey-McClain. The 60-foot long and 7-foot high light photography banner created by artist Vicki DaSilva can be found on the esplanade at 116th Street at the East River. Be sure to check the West Harlem Art Fund website for more programs associated with their “Under the Viaduct 2015” intervention Series.
5. Jorge Luis Rodriguez in Tompkins Square Park and East Harlem Art Park
Beginning this month, artist Jorge Luis Rodriguez presents five artworks at two Manhattan park locations to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of “Growth,” his large-scale, permanent work, and the first of the Percent for Art (PFA) projects in New York City. “The Oracle of the Past, Present and Future,” an installation consisting of geometric interlocking parts of steel, wood and glass elements, had its installation in Tompkins Square Park on June 6th.
Four other sculptures, also created by Mr. Rodriguez, will be installed at the East Harlem Art Park, with an opening reception on June 20th. The East Harlem installation will remain through May 2016, and accompany his piece, “Growth,” which was the first sculpture at the East Harlem Art Park in 1985, where Mr. Rodriguez was joined by Mayor Koch in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Stay tuned for more information on the anticipated June 20th installation reception.
4. Sea Glass Carousel, Battery Park
Battery Park has been undergoing a major facelift. At the helm of the coordination of these projects is the Battery Park Conservancy, and one of the more ambitious projects for “Battery Rebuild” is the $16 million Sea Glass Carousel with its thirty hydraulic fiberglass fish–some as large as nine-feet tall. While this project will only be fully complete by end of summer (hopefully), you can check out the project under construction.
3. High Bridge Reopens
One of the most exciting openings in June has to be the opening of New York City’s oldest bridge–The High Bridge. The bridge, which connects Washington Heights to the Bronx, has been closed for more than fourty years. It originally opened in 1848 and spans 2,000 feet, rising 140 feet above the water. The plan to restore and reopen the bridge began in January 2013 at a cost of $61 million.
2. Hello Kitty Time Capsule
Located on the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza is a 9-foot Hello Kitty Time Capsule by Japanese artist Sebastian Masuda. Similar time capsules will be installed in numerous cities over the next five years and displayed as one massive sculpture at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but this one has been sadly rather empty more than a month after its installation.
1. Fata Morgana
Opened on June 1st in Madison Square Park and continuing through January 2016, Teresita Fernandez’s Fata Morgana consists of six canopies that create an ever-changing palette of color reflected from the mirrored discs. They mirror the different grassy and gardened areas on either side of the connecting pathways and the result is a colorful seasonal display. Fernandez has beautifully utilized the foliage and light so that we can expect to see a variation of colors in the reflections from spring through summer, fall and finally the winter months. This is an installation that will change with all four seasons. The discs are arranged in a lattice-like fashion, bringing in light in a variety of shapes and forms.
You can continue to enjoy several of the installations from our the public art not to miss in May. Get in touch with the author at AFineLyne.
