The Art Students League of New York and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation invite you to the unveiling of Works in Public at Riverside Park South, July 18. The ceremony will start in Riverside Park South (59th Street Entrance) at 4pm, followed by a champagne reception at Pier 1 Café (500 W 70th St).
The year-long outdoor public art exhibition at Riverside Park South in Manhattan features new site-specific sculptures by League artists Helen Draves and Susan Markowitz Meredith. Two additional projects will be unveiled in fall 2023.
Helen Draves (b. South Korea) lives in Long Island, NY. Working across media, Draves explores the passage of time and its physical and metaphorical impact on memory. In her Works in Public sculpture titled Hope, Draves continues these themes in an empathetic reflection on the Covid-19 pandemic. Inspired by a childhood memory of folding paper cranes, which have long been recognized as symbols of hope and healing, Draves created a collection of ceramic birds that when arranged together form the shape of a medical mask.
The sculpture also includes medical masks cast in resin, which are transcribed with open-sourced messages intended to express the hope, loss, and memories of those affected by the pandemic, to serve as a reminder of the power of art to facilitate healing, foster connections, and inspire hope.
Susan Markowitz Meredith (b. Denver, Colorado) lives in New York, NY. Meredith’s LIFE DANCE features three intertwining three-dimensional forms, representing the concept of mutual arising. Drawing inspiration from intertwining spiral forms found in nature, the three central shoots rise from a common source and engage with each other. Each shoot carries a progression of transparent step-like forms that serve as metaphors for an intangible growth process–suggesting that individual experiences are not isolated and that society grows and flourishes by embracing our differences and recognizing our interconnections.
Works in Public is a professional development program founded in 2010 in partnership with The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to guide League students through the process of creating large-scale sculpture for outdoor public spaces within the context of one-year and two-year programs at the Art Students League of New York. Under the guidance of Works in Public alumni Haksul Lee and Natsuki Takauji, alongside instructors at the League, the program supports artist-participants in every phase of the conception, creation, and installation of site-specific public sculpture, culminating in a one-year public exhibition at Riverside Park and Riverside Park South.
Follow The Art Students League on Instagram. More from The Art Students League, including Model for Monuments, 2019-2020.