Tuesday, November 3, 2020 -ENJOY WONDERFUL OPEN AIR ART THIS AUTUMN

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The

199th  Edition

From Our Archives

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020

SHAKE OF THE ELECTION

BY ENJOYING

SOME PUBLIC ART

FROM UNTAPPED CITIES

November this year is a crucial moment for many New Yorkers, with the election at the forefront of everyone’s attention. However, the rest of the month is filled with exciting art events and installations. As many people retreat indoors and shield themselves from the early winter breeze, now is a great time to visit some of the newest public art installations throughout New York City without having to worry too much about being around other people. Remember to wear a mask and practice social distancing as you check out these art installations, from the empowering Medusa Sculpture sitting across from the city’s criminal courthouse where many abusers were tried to the Mother Cabrini Statue unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in Battery Park City. You have to catch a glimpse of the “plastic bag store” before it closes this month as well as take a ride to Rockaway for Shantell Martin’s new mural. Here are the public art installations on display in New York City this November:

A seven-foot tall bronze sculpture of Medusa was unveiled in Collect Pond Park in October, across from the New York County Criminal Court in Lower Manhattan. A collaboration between Medusa With The Head Project (MWTH) and New York City Parks, Medusa With The Head of Perseus is meant to question Medusa’s portrayal and narrative in Greek mythology and reimagine an inverted narrative.

Garbati made the original Medusa sculpture in 2008. He posted photos of it on social media in 2018, at the height of Me Too movement and the year the Argentine Senate rejected a bill that would fully decriminalize abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The photos went viral, and the sculpture became a symbol of resistance for women. Garbati seeks to change the traditional narrative of Medusa by portraying her in a somber moment of self-defense, holding the head of her slayer. According to the organizers of the sculpture, Medusa With The Head of Perseus has been deliberately sited across the street from the courthouse where “high profile abuse cases, including the recent Harvey Weinstein trial.”

Light of Freedom, an outdoor art project in which a torch is filled with a timeworn bell, a herald of freedom, and with the arms of mannequins, is meant to reflect the current turbulent political climate in the country during a time of global pandemic and mass protests. The torch, based on the Statue of Liberty’s hand holding a torch which was on view in the same park more than a century prior, symbolizes the light of democracy. The artist Abigail DeVille said that the project is inspired by the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “In my research, I have found that the first Blacks to be brought to New York City were eleven Angolans in 1626. That makes people of African descent the second-oldest group of settlers in New Amsterdam, after the Dutch,” DeVille said on Madison Square Park’s website. “Unfortunately, history has erased the contributions and victories of this group. I want to make something that could honor their lives and question what it means to be a New Yorker, past, present, and future.”

Photograph by Ian Douglas

Starting in October, you can visit “The Plastic Bag Store” at 20 Times Square, a public art installation and immersive theater project that was delayed from March due to Covid-19. The Plastic Bag Store is a work by artist and director Robin Frohardt, produced by Pomegranate Arts and presented by Times Square Arts. It will be open free to the public through November 7, 2020 from Wednesdays to Sundays, with advance reservations.
The store will have thousands of hand-sculpted “products” made from discarded, single-use plastics. You’ll find everything you can find in a grocery store, like meat, produce, cakes, toiletries, dry goods, and even sushi rolls. According to Times Square Arts, “With The Plastic Bag Store, Robin Frohardt employs humor and craft to examine our culture of consumption and convenience and the enduring effects of single-use plastics. Small groups will enter The Plastic Bag Store for a 60-minute immersive experience, featuring hidden sets and a captivating puppet film that explores how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.”

Photo: Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

A new statue designed and created by the sculptors Jill Burkee-Biagi and Giancarlo Biagi dedicated to Mother Cabrini was unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Battery Park. Located just south of the South Cove on the Battery Park Esplanade, the statue is in honor of Saint Frances Xavier (Mother) Cabrini. Born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in modern-day Italy in 1850, Mother Cabrini was the first American citizen to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Governor Cuomo announced plans for the creation of a Mother Cabrini statue and memorial on Columbus Day 2019. The announcement came in the wake of controversy surrounding the She Built NYC initiative from Mayor de Blasio and his wife Chirlaine McCray. She Built NYC will add five new statues of women in New York City, including one of Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress. The five women were selected in part through a public voting process, and although Mother Cabrini won the vote, she was not chosen to be honored. A spokesman for She Built NYC stated at the time that she had not been selected because tributes already existed.

Time Square Arts’ Midnight Moment series, the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition that displays on Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight, continues into November with its newest art installation: Table Manners by artist Zina Saro-Wiwa. The projection on the screen features individuals from the Niger Delta Region who consume their meals with their hands while gazing directly at the artists’s camera during the videos. These videos are staged as a celebration of community, tradition, and a collective act of memory. Saro-Wiwa’s work, according to Time Square Arts website, is candid and vulnerable yet undeniably confrontational, raising consciousness around the socioeconomic and political troubles the oil-producing Nigerian region faces.

“Table Manners appearing as the Midnight Moment is a special curatorial opportunity. It suggests the magic of the Midnight Feast which is the inspiration for my opening night performance,” Saro-Wiwa said in a press statement. “My hope is that people can come together — socially distanced of course — and commune with not only the people of Ogoniland and Port Harcourt in Nigeria who I have filmed, but also with each other. To look each other in the eye and just be.”

Looking for a great fall photo op? Head to Manhattan’s Seaport District along the East River. At the Heineken Riverdeck at Pier 17 passersby will find a giant arch made out of 500 gourds. Standing under the arch, you will be surrounded by pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There are tiny yellow pumpkins, large orange ones, and white pumpkins, decorated with intertwining leaves and branches.

The arch is situated to give you an amazing view of the Brooklyn Bridge and at night, the arch lights up with an orange glow. You can take pictures at the pumpkin arch now until Thanksgiving.

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

No one guessed the unused prison barge that is docked across from Riker’s Island. ( A blue and white elephant that is costing the city millions a year)

CLARIFICATION
WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE THE FIRST WINNER OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER.
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WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU

EDITORIAL

Remember to bring your FASTPASS  to the poll site to make your check in go faster.
P.S. 217 IS open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. for voting.

See you at the polls,
JUDITH BERDY

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated

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