Summer Art In Parks: A Round-up (Part I)
America’s Chinatown Voices in Columbus Park.
New Yorkers and tourists alike can catch some culture while enjoying the city’s parks this summer. From beaches to greenswards and tunnels to trestles, on piers, plazas, boulevards and traffic medians, Parks & Recreation’s Public Art Program features an eclectic array of artwork in green spaces throughout the five boroughs. Below is a listing of selected highlights.
Julia Vogl, Leaves of Fort Greene, Fort Greene Park, through July 10.
Vogl is an independent artist whose Leaves of Fort Greene is situated in Brooklyn’s oldest major park. Her installation explores how light colors our experience. Large plexi-glass panels embellished with images of enlarged foliage layered in translucent paint rely on the movement of sunlight to create ever-changing combinations of pattern, color and light.
Julie Farris and Sarah Wayland-Smith, A Clearing in the Streets, at Collect Pond Park, through October 1, 2009.
A project of the Public Art Fund, A Clearing in the Streets is an urban viewing structure that provides a glimpse of a natural habitat in a city setting and demonstrates in real time, how landscapes evolve. Located where a great wetland stood until the early 19th century, this ten-sided plywood structure is punctuated with viewing slots offering fleeting glances that reveal an idealized meadow of wild flowers growing surrounded by a panoramic mural of a vast blue sky. Starting from seeds and young plants, the meadow will grow and flourish over the duration of the piece turning in to a lush native habitat in a plaza framed by courthouses.
Spencer Finch, The River That Flows Both Ways, The Highline, through June 2010.
A collaboration of Creative Time with Friends of the Highline and NYC Parks, this installation will be presented on the occasion of the opening of the High Line as a City park in June 2009. Where freight once traveled Finch transforms an existing grid of window frames into a complex and soothing matrix of 700 individually crafted panes of glass representing the tidal cycle of the Hudson River over a period of 700 minutes on a single day. The installation is placed in a semi-enclosed tunnel atop the line, between 15th and 16th Streets, viewable from both the street and up on the Chelsea Market section of the High Line. The work links the movement of the river, viewable from the site, with the historic movement of the railway and the atmospheric conditions of its location on Manhattan’s West Side.
Kyu Seok Oh, Renka, Montefiore Park, up through June 15.
A project of West Harlem Art Fund with Harlem School of the Arts, Renka is a massive reclining figure created from hundreds of strips of wood. Inspired by his mother, artist Kyu Seok Oh created this piece as a symbol of all women. Students from the Harlem School of the Arts assisted with the construction of the work, which while ephemeral in nature has strong physical presence.
Richard Baronio, Spotted Leaf, Fort Tryon Park, through September 25.
Baronio created Spotted Leaf--a four-foot long self supporting perforated stainless steel leaf-- based on his recent interest in gardens as a source of inspiration and subject matter. With many beautiful locations in Fort Tryon, the artist settled on the beloved heather gardens as a temporary home for this work.
Natalie Pham and Avanti Patel, America’s Chinatown Voices, through August 8.
Organized by the Asian American Arts Center, America's Chinatown Voices consists of 80 brightly colored panels mounted on the fence encircling Columbus Park. Local voices, ideas, stories, and images have painted by the artists on these wood panels. The black silhouetted images on red backgrounds have the potency of political posters, and collectively create a dynamic rhythm framing this historic park at the heart of Chinatown. Every weekend throughout the summer, the artists and volunteers will come to repaint many of the panels with new comments and thoughts, renewing each artwork.
John Morton, Sound Tunnel, Central Park Zoo, through September 10.
Avant-garde composer John Morton’s rich sonic collage, Central Park Sound Tunnel, will resonate in the pedestrian tunnel between the Central Park Zoo and Children’s Zoo adjacent to 5th Avenue. Beginning every half-hour with the ringing of the Delacorte chimes, this 20-minute, 6-speaker sound installation incorporates field recordings made in Central Park over the last year. Randomly-generated selections of ambient sounds such as horses clopping, baseball games, birds, and the carousel are woven together to form a complex ever-changing compositions that echo through the cavernous tunnel. The installation will run every day from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
QUOTATION FOR THE DAY
“To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”
Plutarch
(46 AD - 120 AD)