Art in the Parks

Description:
Charles Ginnever’s piece High Rise (1984) is located on the lawn along the water at 145th Street in Riverside Park through March 2014. This exhibition marks Ginnever’s return to Parks, having exhibited in Carl Schurz Park in 1967 as part of Sculpture in Environment, one of the city’s first public art exhibitions. Charles Ginnever was born in San Mateo, CA in 1931. He is best known for his large-scale, open form works for the outdoors. He created the first of these in 1958 with abandoned railroad ties and structural steel. The result was a deconstruction of prevailing sculptural spatial concepts that he continues to examine. A contemporary of Mark di Suvero and Richard Serra, who also exhibit monumental steel pieces, Ginnever’s sculptures have a trick of the eye and appear to warp as someone looks at the pieces from different angles.

Description:

Visible to Roosevelt Island Tram riders, Queensborough Bridge commuters, and pedestrians, Hosea, a 15 foot tall steel and iron sculpture, features an enormous railroad gear that is supported by a tripod of wavy steel legs. This gear refers beautifully to the working yellow gear in the mechanical section of the tram, clearly visible from the park. Eisner found the gear in a scrap yard and placed it at the apex of the sculpture to “celebrate its form and strength,” rather than its industrial past. The three legs straddle the decorative paved element in the center of the park and allow ample space for viewers to perambulate under and around the sculpture.

This exhibition is presented by Susan Eley Fine Art.

Description:

Cheryl Farber Smith’s Mellow Yellow is as fun as its name. The nine-foot tall aluminum sculpture is a playful piece that juxtaposes the most basic of all visual elements –geometric shapes. Painted a brilliant yellow, the sculpture is comprised of suspended circles, cylinders and cubes that take part in an animated dance. Centrally located in Tribeca Park (also known as Beach Street Park), this sculpture will brighten the heavily canopied plaza. Smith, who exhibited her sculpture Leaning Firm in Brooklyn’s Columbus Park in 2007, also explores similar themes in her photographic prints.

Description:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars is part of a progression from a series of smaller sculptures Henricksen made out of porcelain. The porcelain series started in 2010 with a show at John Connelly Presents in Chelsea and the Brooklyn Museum acquired one of these sculptures in 2011. Awry and gnarled, Henricksen’s tree trunks are riddled with arborglyphs, delivering messages that speak of human behavior, while conveying both distress and conviction. The quote “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars is found in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere's Fan.

Description:

Jaehyo Lee’s continues his signature use of crosscuts of Korean big-cone pine. For this work, the artist meticulously carved, shaped, and burned the circular wood slabs that are attached to a steel armature reminiscent of an 18-foot tall champagne flute. Lee is particularly interested in highlighting the “beauty in what is seen but not noticed.” LOTUS is a minimalistic approach to a monumental sculpture that exposes the nature of his materials, including the natural texture and character of the wood grain. Lee’s is the eighteenth public artwork to be exhibited in Union Square Park, seven of which including LOTUS at the southeast triangle.

This project is presented with Cynthia Reeves PROJECTS and the Union Square Partnership.

Description:

Three sculptures by artist Alan Binstock are on view in Ft. Tryon Park—Wayfinder, located across from the New Leaf Café, and Third Portal and Trance Ender, found along the Stan Michels Promenade. Made of resin, shattered tempered glass and steel, all three pieces appear to be tools offering direction or pathways to discovery and (inner) navigation.

These sculptures are appropriately placed along the promenade that overlooks the Heather Garden, so the natural colors of the garden are reflected in Binstock’s luminous sculptures.

Alan Binstock also worked as a jeweler, carpenter, cabinetmaker, and taught yoga, verging close to a monastic life in an ashram community. Binstock currently works as an architect at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He finds the continued exposure to near and deep space images, as well as Eastern metaphysics, powerful influences on his work. Wayfinder borrows and interprets the forms of ancient armillaries and astrolabes, as well as Hubble imagery. Mantras and words of peace are inscribed in the outer ring and the center is composed of shattered tempered glass and dyed resin that catches the light that shines through the trees overhead. Trance Ender was inspired by the idea of energy centers (chakras) referenced in Eastern philosophies. With an interest in transmitting these ideas, Binstock mimicked the form of transmission towers. His new sculpture, Third Portal is also made of colorful shattered glass and caste resins that resemble the rotating cosmos.

Description:
Individuals is composed of 15 bronze sculptures that are all unique, but similar in form. Made specifically for the park, “these individual figurative forms come together as a close community, yet it is always to be remembered that it is the individual that makes our world a place of justice and compassion,” says Andrew Rogers.  It is a particularly apt theme that resonates with this location, the gateway for the United Nations. Rogers uses bronze for these twelve-foot individuals, a material weighted in the history of art, but used in a light, contemporary manner for this exhibition. The organic, ribbed outer surfaces act as counterpoints to the delicate, highly polished sculpture interiors. Each piece is balanced on a tightly curled base that unfurls as it extends upwards and outward in a continuously undulating spiral movement—similar to that of a tornado or a blooming flower.

Description:

Orly Genger’s monumental commission entitled Red, Yellow and Blue features the artist’s renowned usage of intricately hand-knotted nautical rope covered in paint, creating a work that transforms the park’s lush lawns into colorfully-lined chambers. Following its New York run, the installation will travel to the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum outside of Boston in October 2013, marking the first Mad. Sq. Art commission to tour.

Genger’s work artfully transcends the perceived limits of the materials she employs. This Mad. Sq. Art commission consists of 1.4 million feet of rope—the total length equating to nearly 20 times the length of Manhattan—covered in over 3,000 gallons of paint, and weighing over an astounding 100,000 pounds. Red, Yellow and Blue employs repurposed rope collected from hundreds of miles up and down the Eastern seaboard, bringing elements of the coastline to the urban setting of Madison Square Park. Together, three separate undulating structures of layered rope shaped on-site by the artist redefines the landscape of the park, creating interactive environments that invite visitors to explore both exposed and hidden spaces, encouraging them to navigate and experience Madison Square Park anew.

This exhibition is presented by the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Description:

Roman Standard features a single bronze bird perched on top of a thirteen-foot pole that rises over the park. Often mistaken as a real bird, Tracey Emin describes the sculpture is a symbol of “hope, faith and spirituality” that serves as a point of contemplation. The sculpture serves as a reinterpretation of the militaristic symbols of traditional Roman Standards by demonstrating a seemingly insignificant creature’s strengths in its embodiment of height, air and light. “Most public sculptures are a symbol of power which I find oppressive and dark,” said Emin. “I wanted something that had a magic and an alchemy, something which would appear and disappear and not dominate.”

This exhibition is presented by Art Production Fund, Lehmann Maupin and White Cube.

Description:

The Jackson Square Alliance presents Selections From The Modern Landscape (Jackson Square) by artist Kenneth Pietrobono. This commissioned project uses botanical signage to rename the existing plant life of historic Jackson Square Park to reflect the narratives and dynamics of its cultural environment.

With names such as Displacement, Pleasure and Class Barrier, Pietrobono works to acknowledge the complex forces at play in Jackson Square and its adjoining neighborhoods while creating space for consideration, understanding and thought on the public’s role in the modern landscape.

While many of the elements may prove challenging, by aligning them with the calm, neutral presence of the natural environment, Pietrobono encourages a tone of honesty, patience and empathy. In conjunction with the installation, the artist will be present at scheduled times to engage with the public through discussion and response. Detailed information may be found online.

This exhibition is presented by the Jackson Square Alliance