NYC Parks Director of Art & Antiquities Jonathan Kuhn will give a guided tour of the bicentennial exhibition “Parks Now: Honoring the Olmsted Legacy,” on view at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park. The show, which features innovative park designs that build on Frederick Law Olmsted’s legacy in New York City, is on view until June 2, 2022. The guided tour by Jonathan Kuhn will take place on Wednesday, May 25th at 12:30pm at The Arsenal Gallery, Fifth Avenue at 64th Street, on the 3rd floor in Central Park. Mask-wearing is required to enter the gallery, and guests are required to sign in. This is a free event, open to the public.
The show celebrates the bicentennial birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) a landscape architect known for his work co-designing Central Park, Prospect Park, and other urban green spaces and his ideas about park design. The exhibition invites New Yorkers to learn about Olmsted and his lasting influence on parks in New York City.
Olmsted created a new kind of civil engineering that blended function and beauty, producing sanctuaries that had a profound impact on the cityscape. With renderings, site plans, and photos, the exhibition highlights Olmsted’s New York City projects, greenways then and now, and a selection of 10 new and reimagined parks that incorporate his design principles–including former industrial sites, waterfront parks, plazas, and neighborhood playgrounds.
When you’re finished, walk down Fifth Avenue to 57th Street to see Gillian Wearing’s monument to Diane Arbus on the Doris C. Freedman Plaza, and from 59th Street to 47th Street, you can still enjoy artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet and Van Cleef & Arpels’ sidewalk creations, Fifth Avenue Blooms – on view until the end of May, 2022. Head east on 57th Street, and view That’s Life at the Keith de Lellis Gallery, located in the historic Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street – exhibition just extended to June 24, 2022.