beyond the Center

Life Between Buildings
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Avenue
Long Island City, Queens

MoMA PS1’s Life Between Buildings is an exhibition highlighting the ways in which New York City’s artists have engaged with the politics of urban space through its interstitial spaces (vacant lots, sidewalk cracks, traffic islands, and parks, among others) from the 1970s to the present day.

Inspired by New York City’s radical birth of community gardening in the 1970s, when grassroots groups of Lower East Side residents began usurping abandoned private and public lots and traffic islands, transforming them into gardens and safe communal spaces, the show takes stock of the ways in which artists have similarly influenced the city’s in-between spaces.

Jody Graf, assistant curator at MoMA PS1, brings together an intergenerational group of artists whose collective works trigger questions about the availability, accessibility, and health of our urban spaces. Artists include Tom Burr, Mel Chin, Danielle De Jesus, Niloufar Emamifar, Becky Howland, David L. Johnson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Margaret Morton, Aki Onda, Poncili Creación, POOL (Performance On One Leg), Matthew Schrader, jackie sumell with The Lower Eastside Girls Club, and Cecilia Vicuña.

Be sure to catch the accompanying exhibition, Growing Abolition, in PS1’s courtyard, a collaboration between jackie sumell, the Lower Eastside Girls Club, and MoMA PS1, a multipart project investigating connections between ecology and prison abolition, designed to develop gradually from spring through winter.

Black Atlantic
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Through November 27, 2022

Co-curated by Public Art Fund adjunct curator Daniel S. Palmer and artist Hugh Hayden (holder of a B.Arch from Cornell), Black Atlantic—named after Paul Gilroy’s book of the same title—is a site-responsive group exhibition of five hand-sculpted works spread across Piers 1, 2, and 3 at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Historically, from colonial times up until the 1970s, the Brooklyn waterfront has served as a major point of contact, linking Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. The water’s edge plays a key role in this exhibition, as each sculpture responds to the site by relaying a story of “the complex identities that have developed through the exchange of culture and ideas over centuries along transatlantic routes.” ^[1]

Each artist—Leilah Babirye, Dozie Kanu, Tau Lewis, Kiyan Williams, and Hugh Hayden—was chosen because of the “material exploration”^[2]  involved in their practice. The result is a materially and conceptually diverse group of work that serves as a “counterpoint to a monolithic perception of Blackness, and is reflective of the multitude of ways in which individuals can create a new vision within the context of American culture that is expansive, malleable, and open to all.” ^[3]

For the Birds
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Entrances:
150 Eastern Parkway
455 Flatbush Avenue
990 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
Through October 23, 2022

This summer, Brooklyn Botanic Garden presents For the Birds, a multidisciplinary celebration of the interconnections of birds and plants. Anchoring the festivities is a garden-wide exhibition of 33 site-specific birdhouses, which includes the work of many renowned architects and artists like Steven Holl, Tatiana Bilbao, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, Helene Schauer, Nina Cooke John, Walter Hood, Roman and Williams, Sourabh Gupta, Tom Sachs, Olalekan Jeyifous, and Misha Kahn.

For the Birds also features a gallery exhibition, music, performances, and education programming inspired by the garden’s resident birds and the threat to their long-term survival.

Rebecca Reagan’s vision for the exhibition was brought to life by acclaimed film and television music supervisor Randall Poster. It was part of a larger initiative featuring music and poetry by more than 220 music artists, actors, literary figures, and visual artists, including Beck, Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Philip Glass, Bette Midler, and Yo-Yo Ma. Poster has curated a 20-album set of original recordings set for release this year, titled For the Birds: The Birdsong Project. Each birdhouse is coupled with a track from The Birdsong Project, offering a multisensory experience for visitors.

Landscape and Memory, 2022
Madison Square Park
Through December 4, 2022

Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias’s Landscape and Memory, 2022, will be on display at Madison Square Park, her first major temporary outdoor installation on view in the United States.

The work consists of five bronze elements layered with constructed bas-reliefs, characterized by details of rocks, roots, and abstract forms, appearing just at and below the ground plane, with a steady stream of water running through each piece. The installations are mapped along the former flow of what was once Cedar Creek, the water course that was covered over by the rapid development that took place in the area during the late 19th century. Referencing Simon Schama’s book Landscape and Memory, Iglesias studied historic maps that documented the topography of Madison Square Park to locate the creek’s former pathway.

Landscape and Memory, 2022, brings our attention to the changes in geography that can take place in the name of development. According to the Madison Square Park Conservancy, “Using New York City’s past as initial inspiration, the artist addresses a condition that recurs in urban environments worldwide. Iglesias brings buried natural history just to the surface of our expectations and imaginations.”

Accompanying the installation are several free interdisciplinary events, including a summer music program curated by Carnegie Hall. For details on auxiliary programming, please visit the Madison Square Park Conservancy website.