Saturday, September 7, 2024 – MEET A HERD OF ELEPHANTS IN MANHATTAN

By admin

THE GREAT ELEPHANT

MIGRATION

IS COMING 

TO MANHATTAN 

&

OTHER GREAT  SEPTEMBER EVENTS

ISSUE # 1300!!!!

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

A herd of 100 Indian elephant sculptures will descend upon the Meatpacking District on September 6th! The arrival of The Great Elephant Migration marks the largest installation to come to New York City since Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates in 2005. The herd started its journey in Newport, Rhode Island and after New York, it will travel to Miami, Blackfeet Nation, Buffalo Pastures in Browning, Montana, and Los Angeles. As the installation moves across the country in electric trucks adorned with Indian lorry art, it will bring awareness to the relationship between humans and animals and raise funds for organizations supporting that coexistence such as local groups like New York City’s Wild Bird Fund, INDIGENOUS LED, and Lion Guardians.

All of the elephants were crafted by Coexistence Collective, a community of 200 Indigenous artisans living within India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The sculptural herd is based on the elephants that India’s Soligas, Bettakurumbas, Kattunayakan, and Paniyas tribes live amongst. Every elephant is unique.

A new billboard will appear on the High Line at 18th Street on September 3rd. The giant sign created by artist Glenn Ligon is an altered image of a neon piece he created back in 2008. In revisiting a piece originally created during an election year (the year Obama won), Ligon examines the shift in America’s political climate and culture as we face another presidential election. In this new iteration, Ligon has taken a photo of the neon work and added thick black X’s over some of the letters in “America.” The only unaltered letters that show through spell “Me.” By manipulating the image this way, Ligon calls attention to the self-focused tendencies of today’s society and inspires viewers to contemplate the complex relationship between our nation and ourselves.

A new monumental installation by the late Dominican artist Iván Tovar is coming to Times Square on September 15th. Standing 13 feet tall,TOVAR The Chair is a large-scale version of Tovar’s earlier work, La Chaise Adulte (The Adult Chair). The installation of this surrealist, stainless steel sculpture coincides with the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month and calls attention to the 800,000 Dominicans living in the New York region. A 50-foot screen-printed timeline chronicling Tovar’s inspiring career will accompany the sculpture. TOVAR The Chair will sit in Broadway Plaza between 45th and 46th Streets and 7th Avenue until November 15, 2024.

Edra Soto debuts her first large-scale public art commission in New York City on September 5th at Doris C. Freedman Plaza. Titled Graft, the sculptural installation is part of an ongoing series based on rejas, wrought iron screens frequently seen outside lower and middle-class homes in Puerto Rico. Soto was born in Puerto Rico and currently lives in Chicago. For her New York installation, Soto has created an inviting domestic scene out of red terrazzo concrete and corten steel. Three tables with seats beckon passersby to take a rest.

Patterns on the rejas cast playful shadows of Caribbean palm leaves and other imagery sourced from Yoruba
symbols of West Africa, a prominent influence on Puerto Rican design. By combining these symbols of her birthplace with the bustling scenes of New York, Soto “reflects on themes of migration, displacement, and the search for belonging.”

You can help create a dazzling light display this month as the annual Morningside Lights parade returns to celebrate “100 Years of New York Art.” Ahead of the grand illuminated parade on Saturday, September 21st at 8 PM, New Yorkers can help create the glowing handmade lanterns in a lantern-building workshop. The workshops will run from September 14th through 20th at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University (116th St. and Broadway). Interested participants can register here!

This year’s theme, In Retrospect, “celebrates how a century of New York art has shaped our image of where and how we live.” On September 21st, the luminescent parade will travel from the heart of Morningside Park, up Morningside Drive, to the Columbia campus. Participants and spectators are welcome to join anywhere along the roughly one-mile route.

Buildings 77 and 92 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard are currently home to two unique installations. At Building 77, visitors will find Hedgework by Marek Walczak (Civic Space LLC), Mark Shepard (Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies), and Antonina Simeti (Timbre Consultants). This outdoor piece is a sentient hedgerow made up of native plants, environmental sensors, and materials such as sand, stone, and solar panels sourced straight from companies in the Yard. Visitors can interact with the piece by sitting among the plants and by scanning a QR code which will provide information about the habitat and the Brooklyn Navy Yard with AI technology. On September 19th, co-creator Mark Shepard will host an Eco Data Workshop where you’ll learn about the data collected by the hedge, how to document and interpret the data, and how to use data for various purposes from policymaking to art. Book your ticket here!

Steven and William Ladd’s Transforming America through Art: A Vision for Brooklyn’s Community at Building 92 was created with input from Brooklynites. Locals responded to the prompt, “What one word describes your hopes for the future?” The installation displays answers to this question along with photographic reproductions of collaborative textile artwork created by the Ladds over the past ten years. On September 17th, you can join the Ladd brothers for a free artmaking workshop and tour at the Navy Yard. Your contribution will become part of a community art project on view in the exhibition! These sessions are designed for industry professionals working at and around the Brooklyn Navy Yard and are open to anyone who is 18 years or older. This Brooklyn installation is part of a larger project called Scrollathon which will be on view at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. as part of a 250th anniversary celebration of the United States’ founding.

Show your solidarity with fellow New Yorkers by participating in a walk from Harlem Art Park down to Madison Square Park on the mornings of September 7th and 20th. Conceived by artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Procession of Angels for Radical Love and Unity will highlight seven stops throughout Manhattan that were historically filled with agency, optimism, or trauma. Some of those stops include the Dos Alas (Two Wings) mural dedicated to revolutionaries Ernesto Che Guevara and Pedro Albizu Campos, the former site of the Colored Orphan Asylum, and a monument to independence leader José Julián Martí. Stops will include poetry readings and the procession on September 7th will end with an artmaking workshop, while the procession on September 20 will end with musical performances. Anyone who wants to participate is encouraged to register here. “

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

CREDITS

PHOTO OF THE DAY

49TH AND FIFTH

THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS PARK FOUNDATION
HOSTED THEIR ANNUAL FUNDRAISER
ON THE 7TH FLOOR ROOFTOP GARDEN
AT 520 FIFTH AVENUE.
A WONDERFUL AFTERNOON FOR A GREAT EVENT!

EXCITING COMING ATTRACTION

100,000 plush flowers crafted by artist CJ Hendry will take over Four Freedoms Park from September 13-15! This immersive floral exhibition, Flower Market, is housed within a greenhouse built on the park’s lawn. Colorful florals inside were inspired by the Roosevelt family: the yellow Eleanor Roosevelt Rose, Tulips for the Roosevelt family’s Dutch heritage, red roses symbolizing the Roosevelt name, and Peonies, a signature flower of the family’s farm. Twelve original drawings by Hendry accompany the blossoming meadow. Visitors are encouraged to pluck their own flowers from the garden to take home. This exhibition is free and open to the public from 10am to 4pm on September 13 to 15.

Check out her website and imagine what we will see here:
https://cjhendrystudio.com

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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