New York’s museums and galleries are pulling out all the stops to lure visitors in town this spring for Frieze, Tefaf and their many satellite fairs and auctions, but the city’s outdoor spaces are also full of art. Visitors strolling The High Line before or after a visit to Frieze can take in Cosima von Bonin’s chorus of fishy rockers or applaud Karon Davis’s giant, bowing ballerina. In the nearby Garment District, pedestrians can gaze up at—and walk under—Chakaia Booker’s 35ft sculpture Shaved Portions (2021). In Madison Square Park, Rose B. Simpson has erected seven towering steel sentinels, her largest works to date, to form a sanctuary with a bronze female figure at its centre. In Central Park’s Doris C. Freedman Plaza, a prismatic sculpture of pink resin by Fred Eversley beckons. And at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Jerome Haferd’s 32ft circular installation Sankofa is both a public sculpture and an outdoor venue, creating a community space.
School of rock
Cosima von Bonin’s WHAT IF THEY BARK? (2022) Photo: Timothy Schenck; courtesy of the High Line
Cosima von Bonin’s WHAT IF THEY BARK? (2022) towers above The High Line’s 10th Avenue Square. The marine musicians could previously be spotted on top of the Central Pavilion during the 2022 Venice Biennale.
Seeing double
Rose B. Simpson’s Seed (2024) Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein
Rose B. Simpson’s Seed (2024) has been installed at both Madison Square Park and Inwood Hill Park as part of Madison Square Park Conservancy’s art programme.
Jasmine, take a bow
Curtain Call (2023) by Karon Davis Photo: Timothy Schenck; courtesy of the High Line
Karon Davis’s bronze sculpture Curtain Call (2023), on The High Line at 23rd Street, is based on a plaster cast of the ballerina Jasmine Perry and was created with the help of 3D-scanning technology.
Rubber soul
Shaved Portions (2021) by Chakaia Booker Alexandre Ayer/@DiversityPics
Shaved Portions (2021), Chakaia Booker’s 35ft-high sculpture created using deconstructed tyres, stands between 39th and 40th Streets, and forms part of the Garment District Alliance’s public art programme.
Light fantastic
Fred Eversley’s Parabolic Light (2023) Photo: Nicholas Knight; courtesy of Public Art Fund; © Fred Eversley, David Kordansky Gallery
Commissioned by Public Art Fund, Parabolic Light (2023), in Central Park’s Doris C. Freedman Plaza, is Fred Eversley’s first outdoors cast-resin work.
