Several outdoor sculpture exhibits will open around New York in the coming months, as the city prepares for the second summer of the Covid era.
At Doris C. Freedman Plaza (Grand Army Plaza and 5th Avenue) sculptor Sam Moyer explores the idea of coming and going with Doors for Doris, a three-sculpture statement consisting of concrete and marble — the intersection of natural and man-made elements, the WWD fashion magazine calls it – will remain on display from now through September.
Further uptown, sculptor Maya Lin will present her 2019 work Ghost Forest Madison Square Park (Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street). Like most of Lin’s work, the exhibit is a statement about climate change, habitat loss and species devastation, on the park’s main lawn. According to The Art Newspaper, the installation will feature three dozen dead cedar trees, placed at the center of the oval green and animated with recorded sounds of endangered and extinct species once native to New York.
On the west side, David Hammons will pay tribute to the meatpacking district and the role of the Hudson River piers in the history of New York with Days End, a metal structure overlooking the river on the site of the long-demolished Pier 52. The work, sponsored jointly by the Whitney Museum of American Art and Hudson River Park Trust, is an open metal structure, an outline of sorts of the original building that stood at the same location. The sculpture extends over the Hudson River, with the effect of creating contrasting views for patrons on land and on the river that will change depending on light and weather conditions.
Also in Midtown, Kaws – real name Brian Donnelly – brings his unique style of pop art to the Seagram Building (Park Avenue, between East 52nd and 53rd Streets). The metal strongman known as What Party will “guard” the building through the end of the year.