Looking to enjoy the summer weather while still scoping out some fine art? Check out six spots in New York City with free public art. From nautical inspired installations to sculpture incorporating plants, viewers can enjoy art outside of museum walls. Continue reading for the public art spots we’re most excited to check out through August.
“Dorothy Iannone: I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door” on The High Line
March 2018 through March 2019
Dorothy Iannone will present “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door” on the High Line.
Berlin-based artist Dorothy Iannone will present a new, large-scale mural installation depicting three colorful Statues of Liberty. Located at 22nd Street on the High Line, the mural features the words “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door,” which comes from the final line of Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” displayed on the Statue of Liberty.
Although the work was conceived before the current immigration crisis, the topic of immigration in the United States was already controversial. Iannone hopes to bring a bit of joy to an often exhausting and demoralizing political debate, with the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of the openness of NYC and the United States.
Located adjacent to the High Line at 22nd St., New York, NY 10011. www.art.thehighline.org.
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While at the High Line be sure to check out the group show “Agora,” spread out at various locations throughout the public park.
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"Dorothy Iannone, I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door," 2018. A High Line Commission. On view March 2018- March 2019. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of Friends of the High Line.
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“Virginia Overton: Built” at Socrates Sculpture Park
May 6 through September 3, 2018
Virginia Overton will present “Built,” a parkwide solo exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park featuring newly commissioned works.
Refashioning found materials with dynamism and potency, Virginia Overton’s work uses elegant forms accompanied with wry humor to address concepts of labor, economics and the land in today’s society. Overton creates new iterations of ongoing forms, such as altered pickup trucks, a roof truss gem sculpture, a billboard and others, with materials used for construction and fabrication.
A crystal-shaped sculpture, the largest work spanning 40 feet, is made using industrial architectural truss systems and angle iron with a hollow central core. A transformed 1990 Ford pickup truck, painted a dark blue, explores the truck as a symbol of mobility, ambition and sculptural material. Overton will also present a found pine joist, suspended from a homemade gantry, as well as a water feature and aquatic garden in the bed of a Dodge Ram. Exhibiting the vitality of creative reuse, the ingenuity of traditional forms of vernacular making, and an entwined admiration and wonder toward the physical and material world, Overton’s work reflects on our world’s shared physical properties and systems, while suggesting communal and environmental precariousness and evolution.
Socrates Sculpture Park is located at 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens, NY 11106. www.socratessculpturepark.org.
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Virginia Overton; ‘Untitled (Gem);’ 2018; Image courtesy the Artist, Socrates Sculpture Park, Bortolami Gallery, and White Cube; Photo by Nicholas Knight Studio.
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“Diana Al-Hadid: Delirious Matter” in Madison Square Park
May 14 through September 3, 2018
For the 36th exhibition through Madison Square Art, Diana Al-Hadid will present “Delirious Matter” at Madison Square Park.
As her first major public art project, Diana Al-Hadid, a Brooklyn-based artist who was born in Syria, will present six newly commissioned works that unite sculptures with plant materials. Situated in the park’s central Oval Lawn, peripheral lawns and northern reflecting pool, her sculptures, despite their eroded appearance, are created from an additive process that is a blend between fresco and tapestry. Two wall works, 36 feet long and combined with rows of hedges to form a room, suggest the elegiac beauty of deteriorating structures nestled into plant material.
The artist’s sculpture “Synonym,” featuring three reclining figures sitting on plinths, will be installed in the surrounding lawns, while a site-specific bust of a female figure perched atop a fragmented mountain will be installed in the reflecting pool. Al-Hadid’s works obscure the boundaries between figure and landscape, painting and sculpture, movement and stasis.
The installation is located across the central Oval Lawn, peripheral lawns, and northern reflecting pool at Madison Square Park, located between Fifth & Madison Avenues, 23rd & 26th Streets, New York, NY. www.madisonsquarepark.org.
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Jacob Hashimoto on Governors Island
June 2 through October 31, 2018
“Jacob Hashimoto on Governors Island” is an immersive public exhibition that is part of the Trust for Governors Island 2018 commission.
Jacob Hashimoto, a New York-based artist, will present two installations, “The Eclipse” and “Never Comes Tomorrow.” Exhibited in the United States for the first time, “The Eclipse” provides a contemplative reprieve from the frenetic energy of the city. Composed of 15,000 delicate bamboo and paper kites in the St. Cornelius Chapel, the work reflects contrasts with the artist’s colorful and dynamic “Never Comes Tomorrow.” Installed in the Liggett Hall archway, “Never Comes Tomorrow” is made up of hundreds of wooden cubes and two massive, steel funnels. Emphasizing the vortex-like nature of the passageway, the work references the artist’s interest in architecture, history and cosmology.
The installation is located at Nolan Park and Liggett Hall. Governors Island is accessible by ferry every day of the week through October 31, 2018. www.govisland.com.
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Jacob Hashimoto’s works on Governor’s Island. Courtesy of Timothy Schenck, the artist, and Leila Heller Gallery.
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Public Art Fund presents “Tauba Auerbach: Flow Separation”
July 1, 2018 through May 12, 2019
The Public Art Fund will present “Tauba Auerbach: Flow Separation.”
For “Flow Separation,” Tauba Auerbach will transform the historic Fireboat John J. Harvey into a contemporary “dazzle ship.” Originally invented by British painter Norman Wilkinson, dazzle patterns were painted onto ships as a way of optically obscuring their forms to confuse enemy submarines tracking their distance, direction and speed. Auerbach, who is known for painterly experimentation, drew inspiration for her dazzle designs from fluid dynamics and the forms found in wake patterns left behind as objects move through water. Auerbach created her designs by floating inks on a fluid bath and combing the surface to create various wake patterns before transferring them onto paper, referencing how the fireboat travels through water as well as how water moves through the belly of the vessel itself.
Boat trips will take place from July 14 through September 23, 2018 on Saturdays at 4:30-5:30 p.m. and 6:00-7:00 p.m. and Sundays at 12:00-1:00 p.m. and 1:30-2:30 p.m. Trips will last 45-60 minutes and will start and end at the same location. The capacity of each trip is 75 people. Reservations are free. While reservations are currently maxed out, visitors are asked to check back frequently as additional tickets will be released when possible, and additional trips may be offered.
The public is also able to board the boat on weekends to experience the design and explore this historic vessel. Hours are Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 3 to 7 p.m. “Flow Separation” will also be viewable from land seven days a week.
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 6: July 1 – August 12
Hudson River Park’s Pier 25: August 13 – September 23
Hudson River Park’s Pier 66a: September 24, 2018 – May 12, 2019
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Tauba Auerbach, "Flow Separation," 2018. Commissioned by Public Art Fund and 14-18 NOW and presented on Fireboat John J. Harvey in New York Harbor July 1, 2018 – May 12, 2019. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery. Image by Nicholas Knight, courtesy Public Art Fund, NY.
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Times Square Arts presents “Mel Chin: Wake”
July 11 through September 5, 2018
Times Square Arts presents “Mel Chin: Wake,” a sculpture that will rise up in the center of the plaza.
Mel Chin, a conceptual artist whose work addresses serious, complex topics with beauty, humor and open storylines, will present “Wake,” depicting parts of a shipwreck. Modeled on the USS Nightingale, a ship with a fraught history as a slaving vessel and commandeered by the U.S. Navy in the Civil War, the work resembles the beached remains of a massive beast. A mysterious figurehead at the front of the wreckage—modeled on Jenny Lind, a 19th century opera star known as the “Swedish Nightingale”—surprisingly comes alive to scan the sky above and sigh.
Crystallizing the ways in which the expanding economies of the past are prologue to our current societal and environmental dilemmas, the work opens a physical and virtual gateway to the future of human existence, inviting participants to contemplate their place within the world’s changing climate.
The installation is located at Times Square, Broadway Plaza, 46th St., New York, NY 10036. www.timessquarenyc.org.
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