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AccessibilityArt in the Parks
Through collaborations with a diverse group of arts organizations and artists, Parks brings to the public both experimental and traditional art in many park locations. Please browse our list of current exhibits and our archives of past exhibits below. You can also see past grant opportunities or read more about the Art in the Parks Program.
Public Art Map and Guide
Find out which current exhibits are on display near you, and browse our permanent monument collection.
Search Current and Past Exhibits
2025
Manhattan
Immanuel Oni, Halo
June 22, 2024 to October 4, 2025
M'finda Kulunga Garden, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
At night, African-Americans during the 1800s were required to carry a candle or lantern on the street after curfew in order for people/police to see them. This was known as the "lantern law". This project reclaims this archaic form of surveillance by illuminating Black spaces, starting with the M Finda Kalunga Garden. Using existing infrastructure, the artwork embeds symbols and narratives into and around the perimeter. Like a halo, a decorated light shade is wrapped around a lightpost emanating light, African textile patterns, names of those buried or other related text. The fencing also portrays African symbols connecting it to the other Chamber's Street Burial Ground. Information such as maps are integrated to show other potential sites of remembrance, like the Freeman Alley.
Alma Allen, Alma Allen on Park Avenue
May 2, 2025 to October 3, 2025
Park Avenue Malls between East 52nd and East 70th Streets, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
This public exhibition is Allen’s largest outdoor
installation to date and the newest in a series of large-scale outdoor
installations staged by Allen in the United States, Mexico and Belgium. Unique
bronze and onyx sculptures, including examples reaching over 10 feet tall and
realized especially for the exhibition, will be on view at eight sites that
span nearly 20 blocks. Park Avenue provides a unique opportunity for New
Yorkers to engage with the artist’s material explorations of consciousness,
free will, and the nature of time, unexpectedly tranquil amongst the energetic
velocity of the city. Juxtaposing the artist’s primordial formations against
the urban landscape, the exhibition encourages new perspectives on the
elemental nature of Allen’s fluid, biomorphic sculptural language.
This exhibition is presented by Kasmin
and the Fund for Park Avenue.
Naomi Lawrence, Superbloom
October 7, 2024 to October 1, 2025
Thomas Jefferson Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
In California, a “Superbloom” of wildflowers that occurs every 2 to 3 years after record breaking winter rains. This surplus of nutrients leads to a spectacular show of spring wildflowers across barren deserts which can at times be visible from space. Harlem-based artist Naomi Lawrence replicates the naturally occurring event from the other side of the U.S. by crocheting oversized California poppies, blue, purple, arroyo lupine, and bright yellow fiddlenecks, and an array of wildflowers that are known to be part of this phenomenon. The artist’s freehand style allows her to capture the subtle shifts of color that happen in nature.
Kerstin Bratsch, Fossil Psychic Stone Mimicry (Palladiana, Masaico_Bench I)
October 26, 2024 to September 21, 2025
The High Line, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
For the High Line, Bratsch presents Fossil Psychic Stone Mimicry (Palladiana, Mosaico_Bench I) (2023-2024), a large-scale site-specific mosaic bench that becomes a “stone painting.” The work is a material translation of one of her Fossil Psychics (stucco marmo) works, in which the painting gesture becomes a body of fossilized fragments, as if the result of geologic phenomena, enshrining the past into the present—like runes, or a fly trapped in amber. Wrapped around an Oregon Green Austrian pine tree, the work offers a moment of respite for parkgoers, quietly urging visitors to reconnect with the natural world that surrounds them on the High Line.
Center for Educational Innovation (CEI), Benchmarks: Empowering Students to Create Inspiring Community Murals on Benches for a Citywide NYC Parks Exhibition
June 7, 2025 to September 14, 2025
Thomas Jefferson Park, Manhattan
CEI BENCHMARKS is a citywide NYC Parks exhibition of 20 inspiring murals on benches created by NYC public school students. These bench murals are part of the CEI Benchmarks program, a comprehensive student arts residency program that empowers NYC public school students to become engaged citizens and create large-scale, collaborative, inspiring community murals on benches for public display in a high-profile citywide exhibition in NYC Parks. The 20 benches, created by over 540 students of grades 3-12, will be on exhibit June 7-September 14 in the Bronx at Rev. T. Wendell Foster Park, in Brooklyn at Prospect Park Parade Ground, in Manhattan at Thomas Jefferson Park, and in Staten Island at Clove Lakes Park.
This exhibition is presented
by The Center for Educational Innovation - website.
Akiko Ichikawa, Limited Limited Editions
March 20, 2025 to September 12, 2025
Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
This exhibition
consists of four vinyl banners, which document the artist’s participatory
project Limited, Limited Edition. The artist guided participants through
stenciling their chosen translations onto secondhand t-shirts. Limited,
Limited Edition is an ongoing gifting project started in 2005 as a way for
the artist to engage with people to create singular cross-cultural experiences
in an imaginative space transcending any one-dimensional take on Japanese
culture.
This exhibition
is presented by Korea Art Forum.
Thomas Gallagher, Lingo Bingo
March 20, 2025 to September 12, 2025
Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Lingo Bingo offers
an opportunity to bridge language and cultural barriers, fostering
understanding in a playful setting. It replaces bingo numbers with words and
phrases in multiple languages, inviting participants to discover shared values.
This installation features 13 languages, including five frequently used in
Inwood: Spanish, Taíno, Lenape, Hebrew, and English.
This exhibition
is presented by Korea Art Forum.
Zeehan Wazed, Ball for Art
September 5, 2024 to September 4, 2025
Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
This group of four murals by artist Zeehan Wazed are set behind the basketball hoops on the Grand Street Basketball Courts in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Together, the murals bring a sense of movement and brightness to the retaining walls surrounding the courts.
Malin Abrahamsson, Moon Finder
September 28, 2024 to September 3, 2025
Riverside Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
Moon Finder is a public sculpture and orientation device. Aligned with the ecliptic—the broad, dynamic celestial belt where the Sun, Moon, and planets orbit through space—it reflects Earth’s emerging position and astronomical relationships within the solar system. Combining elements of science and engineering with the moon’s symbolism as an object of longing and desire, Moon Finder acts as both a literal and metaphorical navigation tool, pointing to this location in Riverside Park and your presence in the cosmos.
Patricia Espinosa, Hourglass
September 28, 2024 to September 3, 2025
Riverside Park, Manhattan
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)
The Hourglass seeks to address the critical issue of water scarcity. The sculpture takes the form of a giant twisted sponge, resembling an hourglass, that symbolizes the diminishing availability of water. It combines both concepts—sponge & hourglass—seeking to visually, and technically, capture the course of water passing through and running out.
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