Art in Public Places: Three public art exhibits for 2010 in New York City

From downtown Brooklyn to City Hall Park and Central Park, New York City is sporting sculptures, courtesy of the Public Art Fund.

Double Take

The newest is a group exhibit named Double Take that opened in November and will run until September 10th, 2010 at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn. The artists take an element of the existing architecture or the environment and play with it. Nothing is as it seems - look once, and then look again. The MetroTech Center is located between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle Avenue and open for viewing dawn to dusk daily for outdoor works.

Peter Coffin

Peter Coffin’s Untitled (Sculpture Silhouettes) will be at City Hall Park until May 2010. Coffin takes visitors through the history of sculpture in his own way with 13 outsized pieces. Although they range in size from 8 to 10 feet tall, they are only one inch thick. Coffin has transformed famous works into flattened aluminum. Imagine Rodin’s The Thinker appearing and disappearing as you walk along the park.

Inside the lobby of City Hall, the scaled-down versions of each piece are installed on a single pedestal in highly polished stainless steel. City Hall Park is bordered by Broadway, Chambers Street, Centre Street and Park Row.

Franz West

Finally, there is still time to catch Franz West - The Ego and the Id at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park. This large-scale aluminum piece will be featured until March 2010. Reaching 20 feet into the air, the piece consists of two similar but slightly different brightly colored looping forms.

One is bubble gum pink and the other alternest blocks of color. But each curls up at the bottom creating stools for passersby to sit, ponder, and become part of the art. It’s located at 60th Street and Fifth Avene at the entrance to Central Park.

All are, of course, free. That’s the purpose of public art.

Learn more about New York City’s public art at PublicArtFund.org

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2009