Here are thirteen art installations not to miss in New York City this June:
13. Governors Island’s The Hills Opens in June
The much-anticipated project, The Hills are opening this summer on Governors Island, ahead of schedule. Dutch landscape firm West 8 created the four hills, which will range from twenty-five to seventy feet in height. The Hills project adds ten acres of green space, which will include 43,000 shrubs and more than 860 trees, along with pathways and playground slides. The tallest of the Hills, Outlook Hill, will offer panoramic views of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan. It will also include a winding path made of blocks from the island’s seawall known as “granite scramble.”
Slide Hill will rise forty feet and includes four slides, one of which will be the longest slide in New York City. Discover Hill, also forty feet in height, will include a site-specific sculpture by British artist Rachel Whiteread, in the form of a cabin. The Grassy Hill, with its sloping lawn, will rise twenty-five feet. In addition to the opening of The Hills, the 2.2 mile promenade around the edge of the island will also open to visitors for biking and walking around the entire island.
12. The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation at Brookfield Place
Photo courtesy ArtsBrookfield
The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation will arrive on the plaza of Brookfield Place on June 10th. There will be ten swings in all, with each swing representing four instruments – piano, harp, guitar and vibraphone, creating various melodies as participants swing back and forth. The installation was created by Daily tous les jours, a Montreal-based design studio, with a focus on community participation.
Photo courtesy ArtsBrookfield
The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation is made possible with support from the Counsel des arts et des lettres du Quebec (CALQ) and will be on the plaza at Brookfield Place from June 10 through July 7. Hop on a swing! It’s free and no reservations are needed. Brookfield Place is located at 230 Vesey Street.
11. Figment NYC on Governors Island
Rendering of FELIX, Figment 2016. Image via Figment
Figment NYC Weekend will return to Governors Island from June 3rd to 5th . This is the tenth year for Figment’s free event. Look forward to old favorites like We’d Like to Teach The World To Belly Dance by Manhattan Tribal, where visitors can watch a performance, or actually experience a mini class. The Aqua Attack! also returns with Calling All Parties, an imaginary Japanese game show where participants dress up in costume and stand inside middle pools doing battle using super soaked plush toys. Prepare to get soaked!
Figment 2016 Summer-Long Program will run from June 3 through August 26, and again include some of your favorites like the artist-designed Minigolf Course, returning for its eighth summer. Figment will introduce a new Treehouse named FELIX, constructed by a group of architecture students, which will also showcase art from local artists. Every Saturday and Sunday, Writing On It All will invite participates to write on the interior surfaces of an out-of-use house, lead by artists and writers. Every form of material can be used from charcoal and chalk to pencil and paint.
10. Flow.16 Returns to Randall’s Island
Flow.16 artist Denise Treizman creation Spartan Follies
The Randall’s Island Park Alliance and the Bronx Museum of the Arts have installed Flow.16, now in its sixth year featuring site-specific projects by emerging artists along the waterfront. This year’s installation, which runs from May through November, begins just steps away from the island side of the new 103rd Street foot bridge, and includes four artists with installations that will take you half-way around the island.
Flow.16 artist Samantha Holmes creations Hell Gate Cairns
Above and below is Flow.16 artist Tim Clifford’s installation Monument to a Missing Island which commemorates the destruction of the East River Island known as Flood Rock, that took place on October 10, 1885.
Flow.16 artist Tracy Clifford’s installation Untitled
9. The Typewriter Project in McCarren Park
Image from the 2015 Typewriter Project in Tompkins Square Park
First appearing on Governors Island in 2014 at the New York City Poetry Festival, the Typewriter Project went on to collect thoughts in Tompkins Square Park, STORY in Chelsea, and Pen + Brush in the Flatiron. The writing confessional booth will now open its doors on June 11th in McCarren Park. Entitled The Subconscious of The City, participants are invited to join in a citywide linguistic exchange in the typewriter booth, which is outfitted with a vintage typewriter, 100-foot long paper scroll, and a custom-built USB typewriter kit, allowing every word to be collected and stored. Join The Poetry Society of New York for a typewriter party on opening day, June 11 from 3-6 pm at McCarren Park near the corner of Driggs Avenue and N. 12th Street. The data that has been collected will all be on display at the 6th annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governors Island on July 30-31 of this year.
8. Paparazzi Dogs in Dumbo
The Dumbo Improvement District, in collaboration with the New York City Department of Transportation Art Program (DOT Art), and Brooklyn Bridge Park have installed The Paparazzi Dogs in the Pearl Street Triangle. Created by Australian husband and wife team, Gillie and Marc, it seems a fitting installation, since Dumbo continues to host thousands of photo shoots a year. The Paparazzi Dogs will be on view through October 2016.
7. Dee Briggs in Foley Square
As part of the New York City Parks Art in the Parks Program, artist Dee Briggs has installed three monumental works entitled Chirality. Located in Thomas Paine Park, part of the Foley Square Civic Center area, Briggs explores the possibilities and limitations of weathered steel. The sculptures range from seven to ten feet high, with the largest piece extending to thirty-six feet long. Chirality is “defined as a three-dimensional object that has no internal plane of symmetry along the x,y or z-axis, and therefore is different from its reflection. The installation will be on view through March 31, 2017.
6. #NotACrime Murals in Harlem
Mural by artist ricky Lee Gordon on The Faison Firehouse Theatre
Kicking off a campaign to raise awareness of human rights abuses in Iran, street artists will be painting wall murals in Harlem as part of the #NotACrime project as a way to provoke conversation about education discrimination in advance of the 2016 United Nations General Assembly. The recently started mural campaign just finished its third mural by Austrian artist, Rone, which is on the side wall of Storefront Academy at 129th Street and Park Avenue. Also completed is a mural by South African artist, Ricky Lee Gordon, located on the side of The Faison Firehouse Theatre and a mural by Harlem’s own Franco the Great, located on the wall of Custom Fuel Pizza.
More artists will be added to the campaign through the spring and summer of this year, with a goal of fifteen completed pieces in Harlem by the September opening of the United Nations General Assembly. This is also not the first appearance of #NotACrime in Harlem. The well-known Brazilian artist Alexandre Keto painted Two Women and a Child on the side of the Amsterdam News building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, just north of 125th Street, as did artist Marina Zumi.
5. Carole Eisner in Prospect Park
The Prospect Park Alliance and New York City Art in the Parks Program have installed four sculptures created by artist Carole Eisner. These pieces are part of Eisner’s series created over the past ten years from i-beams, and are installed in four locations throughout the park. Dancer, a seventeen-foot tall sculpture can be found at the entrance facing Grand Army Plaza; Zeroes, six and a half feet tall, is on the lawn in front of the historic Litchfield Villa on Fifth Street; Skipper, thirteen-feet tall can be found at the entrance to the park from Bartel-Pritchard Square; and Valentine II, a heart-shaped form, will be found on the Peninsula in front of the lake. The i-beam series was created from scrap and recycled metal, and will be on view in Prospect Park through May, 2017.
4. Public Art Initiative Installations in Harlem
“Birdhouse” by artist Jorge Luis Rodriguez will relocate to 106th Street and Lexington Avenue
The Public Art Initiative is sponsored in part with funds provided by the Harlem Community Development Corporation (CDC). Additional installations will be announced before the summer, and will coincide with the distribution of a free art map, which will not only show locations of public art and cultural institutions from Randall’s Island to Jackie Robinson Park, but will also include an extensive list of where to eat and shop on your self-guided art tour throughout the Harlem community. Stay tuned.
3. Coney Art Walls
Returning for a second season, Coney Art Walls opens Friday, May 28th, just in time for the Memorial Day Weekend. The Coney Art Walls Project, curated by Joseph Sitt and Jeffrey Deitch, will present twenty-one new walls that include several artists from last season, and new artists to the project. In the mix are Icy & Sot, Tats-Cru, and Christopher DAZE Ellis, who is currently exhibiting at The Museum of the City of New York through June 19th. All of the murals are expected to be completed in time for the Mermaid Parade on June 18th. Coney Art Walls is adjacent to the original Nathan’s Restaurant, located at 3050 Stilwell Avenue in Brooklyn.
2. Three Days of Freud at Flatiron
The Vienna Tourist Board in partnership with the Vienna based artist, Nychos, present ViennaTherapy, a three-day installation opening June 16, whereby Nychos presents a modern portrait of Freud’s inner life. There will be a 10-foot statue of Sigmund Freud being dissected on his couch is by Austrian artist Nychos, who began his career as a teenager in the street art world. In this case, it will be Freud will be examined (instead of the other way around). Vienna Therapy,The Dissection of Sigmund Freud will be on view at the Flatiron Plaza at 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue from June 16-18, with an unveiling to be held on June 16 at 6pm. In addition, the Jonathan Levine Gallery will be hosting a solo exhibit by Nychos entitled IKON from June 25 to July 23. Pop-icons getting dissected will be the theme, with an opening reception at the gallery on June 25 from 6-8 pm.
1. Art Students League M2M Returns to Riverside Park
Artist Ken Shih “Can Love Pervade Space?” at Art Students League M2M 2015
Riverside Park Conservancy and The Art Students League are getting ready for new installations at The Riverside Park open air gallery. During this sixth year of The Art Students League Model to Monument Project (M2M), there will be seven new sculptures going on view June 16. The M2M program is an opportunity for students to create and produce a piece from the drawing board to the installation as part of the League’s Professional Development Program. Opening ceremony and tour with the artists will be held on June 16 from 4-6 pm. The sculptures will be on view through May, 2017. To get there, enter the park at 59th Street and the Hudson River.
