11. Socrates Sculpture Park

Rock n Roll, Photograph by Scott Lynch, Courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park

Socrates Sculpture Park along the waterfront in Astoria, Queens is still open and the most recent exhibition there is the Socrates Annual, showcasing the work of a group artists who received the Socrates Annual fellowship. The commissions for the show are produced on-site in an outdoor studio over the course of the summer. The works selected engage the Park’s unique history, landscape, and the surrounding community.

For the 2019-2020 exhibition, projects range from a soundscape of the sounds of animals and man-made objects, to a monument to the invasive Ailanthus plant. Several artist projects examine storytelling, from an homage to a Native American myth in which North America exists on a turtle’s back, to a suggestion that a giant has fallen asleep under the Park’s blanket of grass, its exposed nose becoming refuge for a wandering monitor lizard.

Next, check out an interactive map of coronavirus cases by zip code. Also, discover 20 permanent art installations in Lower Manhattan.