Getting pretty excited for Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument over here at the offices of The New York Observer! The project, which is set to run July 1 through Sept. 15 at Forest Houses in the Bronx, will feature a theater, an exhibition space and a restaurant, among other amenities, and now it also has a website: http://www.gramsci-monument.com. Read More
The Dia Foundation announced today that Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s next installation in his monument series will take place at the Forest Houses, a housing development in Morrisania, in the South Bronx. Read More
Fifteen sculptural horses stare at the center of Grand Central Station’s Vanderbilt Hall from either end, confronting commuters in the middle with arresting, eyeless stares. Their colorful raffia bodies rest on sawhorses, allowing viewers to study their black fabric faces, which are embroidered with exotic designs. They came alive for the first time yesterday, their Read More
“Maybe because I’m Italian, I kept thinking of the High Line as a big boulevard or like a street of the Roman forum, and the public sculptures that dot that landscape,” High Line curator Cecilia Alemani said by phone last week.
Ms. Alemani was discussing her latest exhibition, “Busted,” which opens along the mile-long elevated park next month. It includes artworks that play with the conventions of such official public artworks. They’re by nine artists, many of whom rarely produce public art, like George Condo, who has made a beastly head titled Liquor Store Attendant, and Goshka Macuga, who is contributing a bust of Colin Powell delivering his infamous 2003 speech at the United Nations, gingerly holding that famous vial of anthrax. Read More
The next installation in Madison Square Park is going to turn viewers’ worlds upside down. Artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder are constructing a walk-in camera obscura titled Topsy Turvy for their first-ever public art commission, which will open on March 1 and remain on view through April 5. The camera obscura will flip the Flatiron Building on its pointy head, projecting an inverted image of the city inside the installation. Read More
Good news for fans of Leo Villareal’s BUCKYBALL: The glowing 30-foot sculpture will continue to illuminate Madison Square Park until Feb. 15, according to a press release from Mad. Sq. Art. The site-specific installation, composed of nearly 200 LED tubes forming two Carbon 60 molecules, opened on Oct. 25 of last year and was originally slated to go dark on Feb. 1. Read More
Here’s some fine news with which to end the week. The Public Art Fund has extended Tatzu Nishi’s project at Columbus Circle, “Discovering Columbus,” through Dec. 2. The installation, a living room built on scaffolding around the elevated statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle, had been scheduled to close Nov. 18. Read More
Artist Leo Villareal is installing a new sculpture, called BUCKYBALL, at Madison Square Park, as part of the Mad. Sq. Art program. The piece, a light sculpture in the form of a Carbon 60 molecule, will be on display from Oct. 25 to Feb. 1, 2013. Read More
Walking through Zefta hospital, in El Gharbeya, Egypt, outside Cairo, a man points to a filthy sink and shower stall. A few minutes later he says, “Look at the treatment Egyptians get. It’s inhumane!” This is a documentary film about healthcare conditions in Egypt, by the artist collective Mosireen, and as of this evening in New York, it will be viewable on a new website called Creative Time Reports from New York–based public art organization Creative Time. Read More
