4. Diane Arbus Statue at Doris C. Freedman Plaza

Statue of Diane Arbus
Statue of Diane Arbus. Courtesy of the Public Art Fund. Photo by Nicholas Knight.

Located at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street is a five feet, six-inch bronze sculpture of photographer Diane Arbus by artist Gillian Wearing. Arbus has long been a source of inspiration for Wearing, who in 2008 created a photo entitled “Me as Arbus,” paying homage to the photographer by recreating an iconic portrait of Arbus. Presented by the Public Art Fund, the sculpture features Arbus standing with her camera pointed toward the ongoing crowd and her finger on the shutter button. Through creating the sculpture at eye level, Wearing hopes to highlight the “human approach” Arbus took to the art of photography. The sculpture will be on display until August 14, 2022.

As Nicholas Baume, the Public Art Fund’s artistic and executive director stated, “In [Gillian Wearing’s] bronze ‘Diane Arbus,’ we see the posthumous homage to a pioneering artist by another from a different time and place. We also see a modest, unassuming figure, standing at the entrance to Central Park, recognizable by the most distinctive attribute of her public self: her Rolleiflex camera.”