Public Art

Created in partnership with the Art for Justice Fund and the Battery Park City Authority.

James Yaya Hough has created glass art panels filled with images that comment on social justice and encourage empathy for all humanity. The artist describes this three-part work as “a visual journey

Artist Muna Malik’s Blessing of the Boats, a 20-foot, mirrored acrylic origami-style boat into which each participant would place a folded origami onto which they had responded to the following prompt: We have an opportunity to set sail toward a new future; what society would you build and how do

In 1982, Agnes Denes planted a two-acre field of golden wheat on a segment of the Battery Park City landfill as a powerful paradoxical statement, drawing attention to issues of waste, world hunger, and ecological concerns. This public piece, along with the art show series “Art on the Beach” organized

WATCH: BPCA Presents: Public Art on Video – The House That Will Not Pass For Any Color Than Its Own

The notion of home and its meanings has been an ongoing investigation in Mildred Howard’s art for decades. The California-based artist’s prints, sculpture and mixed media assemblages explore themes

Sunrise, Sunset (Revolution) originally consisted of nine triptychs of graduated heights that appear to rise and fall like abstract mountains, and correspond to the Sun’s path from east to west horizons. Three thousand prisms, installed both by the artists and by local students and community members, were held within the

WATCH: BPCA Presents: Public Art on Video – The Real World

Taking over its corner of the park with gleeful abandon, Tom Otterness’s whimsical sculptural installation entitled The Real World is one of New York’s most popular public artworks. Cast in bronze, the sculptures feature Otterness’s signature cartoonish figures:

Rising from the scenic lawns of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, below the junction of River Terrace and Warren Street, The Pavilion occupies a unique position in the landscape, as if negotiating a common ground between the greensward and the city beyond. Because the structure has no walls, both the

WATCH: BPCA Presents: Public Art on Video – Pylons

Martin Puryear’s stately Pylons rise along the waterfront of the Belvedere, framing the sightlines of the Winter Garden. Both columns are made from stainless steel and are composed from six segments. In their contours they are a study in opposites.

As the first major public waterfront plaza built on the Hudson River, the Plaza was commissioned by the Battery Park City Authority as part of its public art program, and was conceived as a multi-purpose space, providing the pleasure of variety via a range of open space for individuals, intimate

Designed by Ned Smyth, The Upper Room is a handsome colonnaded court marking the entrance to the Esplanade at Albany Street. At once dignified and playful, reverent and inviting, this self-contained sculptural environment suggests a contemporary reimagining of an ancient Egyptian temple offering stylized sanctuary from the surrounding city even

R.M. Fischer’s Rector Gate is a festive archway marking the intersection of Rector Place and the Hudson River Esplanade. Built of Steel, bronze, and granite, and rising 50 feet high, the gateway draws its inspiration both from past and future, from Constructivism and Science Fiction, in the artist’s signature style.

Artschwager’s installation consists of five separate pieces situated at the junction of West Thames Street and the Esplanade. At the center is a street lamp shrunken to squat proportions, surrounded by a wooden armature imitating its crown and girded by an upraised circular bench and table. A second circular seating

WATCH: BPCA Presents: Public Art on Video – South Cove

South Cove is an unusual, meditative recess along the waterfront. Considered one of the country’s most significant public artworks, the work is the result of a unique collaboration between environmental artist Mary Miss, architect Stanton Eckstut and landscape architect

Although they do not have human features, Jim Dine’s Ape & Cat (At the Dance) exude the sort of civility and tenderness to which many urbanites aspire. Made of cast bronze, the figures are at onces amusing, allegorical, and unabashedly romantic. The work derives from a series of Dine’s 1990s

WATCH: BPCA Presents: Public Art on Video – Eyes

Eyes marks a departure for the artist in that the subject, unlike previous treatments, is explored as two large units representing eyes separated from any suggested surrounding physiognomy. Resting directly on the ground a calculated distance from each other, they

Created by British artist Tony Cragg, Resonating Bodies consists of a pair of bronze sculptures resembling giant musical instruments. One resembles a lute, the other, a tuba. This playful work is based on the concept that all physical bodies, including ourselves, are constantly enveloped by various energy forms from heat,

Ugo Attardi’s Ulysses, a figure of warmth and energy is defined by the artist as II Modern Baroque. The body, fierce with beauty and Hellenic elegance is united to, and contrasted with, the helmet-mask, which hides and reveals weakness and complexity in the face of the warrior-hero. The dark mask,