With the new year in full swing, art installations continue to open across New York City. As the perfect way to start the year off strong, be sure to check out the High Line’s ode to New York City culture in its mural NYC Love or bask in the watercolor imagery of Times Square Art’s new Midnight Moment series Long Low Line. From recycled geometric public artwork to intriguing photographic displays, the new and continuing art installations this January offer something for everyone to enjoy. Here are the best public art installations to see in January 2023.
1. Patchwork Travelers, by Dennis RedMoon Darkeem at Penn Station
Courtesy of Amtrak Media Relations. Photo by David Plakke. The artwork pictured above is Patchwork Travelers, by Dennis RedMoon Darkeem
Patchwork Travelers, by Dennis RedMoon Darkeem, draws colors, patterns, and icons such as totems, earth mounds, and the medicine wheel from Darkeem’s dual heritage as an Indigenous and African American. The installation is part of Art at Amtrak, a year-round public art initiative at Penn Station. On January 19, 2023, multimedia artist Derrick Adams’ installation The City Is My Refuge will debut at Penn Station. The installation will mark the first time a single artist’s work has taken over the entire concourse used for Art at Amtrak’s programming. Through The City Is My Refuge, Adams seeks to portray the hidden wonders of the urban environment. In the installation, the city is reframed as a place where the natural world shares space with humanity, inviting viewers to consider the connections between nature and urban landscapes. Accompanying the installation is an audio component accessible via a QR code.
Adams’s installation in Penn Station also coincides with the artist’s solo exhibition Derrick Adams: I Can Show You Better Than I Can Tell You, which consists of 16 large-scale works from his series Motion Picture Paintings, on view at the FLAG Art Foundation from January 12th through March 11, 2023. The City Is My Refuge can be viewed through Summer 2023.
2. AZIMUTH at Pike Street Mall
AZIMUTH by Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong. Courtesy of the artist.
Located at Pike Street Malls between East Broadway and Division Street is AZIMUTH, a recycled public artwork originally installed in Washington DC as MERIDIAN. The installation was created by Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong, a New York-based artist focused on exploring the boundary between architecture and art.
After its time in DC from 2021 through 2022, AZIMUTH was rehabbed and transformed by the Chinatown BID and NYC Parks with a new vibrant color makeover. Accompanying AZIMUTH is a ground mural that extends from the installation. With AZIMUTH’s installation, an underused public park median has been transformed into a venue perfect for reflection, frolic, and play. AZIMUTH will be on display through November 5, 2023.
3. NYC LOVE at the High Line
NYC LOVE at the High Line. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of the High Line.
Through Fall 2023, visitors to the High Line can view artist Nina Chanel Abney’s mural NYC LOVE. Upon moving to the city in 2005 from the Midwest, Abney spent her afternoons walking the streets from Chelsea to Times Square. She was soon seduced by tourist icons, falling in love with the city’s bright lights and hustle and bustle atmosphere most often taken for granted by native New Yorkers.
Presented by High Line Art, NYC Love is inspired by Abney’s first years in the city. The work aims to evoke the feeling of newness and unfamiliarity that comes with making a fresh start in a new urban location. To convey this, the mural features classic New York City iconography including the ever-present pigeon, delicious pizza slices, subway car symbols, and the Statue of Liberty. Using bright colors and geometric shapes, NYC LOVE seeks to recreate the joy of experiencing the sights, sounds and smells of New York City for the first time.
4. Port Authority x Midnight Moment
Port Authority x Midnight Moment. Stills from Takeshi Murata’s “Melter 2 (2003)” and Chitra Ganesh’s “The Scorpion Gesture.” Courtesy of Cultural Counsel.
In celebration of Midnight Moment’s 10th anniversary, Times Square Art, alongside the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will showcase the work of previous Midnight Moment artists. Eleven vacant and nearly 9 feet tall advertising spaces will display images from the program’s most historic video features. The artist’s entire original video will be accesible via a QR code.
Through 2023, this collaboration can be found inside the Port Authority’s terminal in the North and South Wings of the station stretching from 40th to 42nd Street as part of the Port Authority’s Quality of Commute Program. Featured artists include Pamela Council, Jennifer West, Cory Arcangel, and Takeshi Murata among others.
5. Midnight Moment at Times Square
Long Low Line by Danielle Dean. Courtesy of Cultural Counsel.
Times Square Arts presents a new edition of its monthly art installation Midnight Moments this January. This new iteration features a series of watercolor animations entitled Long Low Line. Created by interdisciplinary artist Danielle Dean, Long Low Line reimagines archival American auto advertisements, removing cars from a fictional landscape to emphasize the illusion of capitalism and aspirational consumerism. Through its utilization of linear panning across scenes of architectural ruins and sun-kissed mountain ranges, the three-minute video makes reference to the continuous movement of industrial assembly lines and multiplane camera techniques,
Long Low Line‘s vignettes were inspired by advertising campaigns for “Fordlandia” a town built in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest during the 1920s to source rubber. In Long Low Line, Dean extrapolates upon the idealized advertising material originally employed to justify the town’s mass consumption and environmental extraction. By doing so, the video imagines new fantastical environments set amidst the world’s most iconic commercial space, challenging viewers to question the relationship between the environment and consumer capitalism.
Stories features eight large-scale images from Dennis’ series of the same name. Within Native American culture, stories and legends play a fundamental role. The stories seek to address the unknown while also instilling in listeners the importance of revering nature. The exhibition aims to showcase Dennis’ unique blend of traditional and digital photography which stitches together supernatural elements to construct vignettes that toe the line between fantasy and reality. Through Stories, Dennis explores the interconnectedness of spiritual belief and modern standards of perception, giving agency to Native American culture and the debt to nature humanity owes.
Irene Madrigal is a sophomore at Barnard College intending on majoring in English and History with a minor in Spanish. As a native New Yorker, she can be found guiding her friends across the city and
