Thursday, August 24, 7pm until late: Last Frontire at Kingsland Wildflowers

NOoSPHERE Arts is  pleased to present the winner of this year’s  Residency Award @MothershipNYC: Faith XLVII, a multidisciplinary street artist from South Africa. Complementing Faith’s talk on her residency project on a nearby rooftop, we’ll also feature the current batch of Mothershippers: Clown provocateur Anna Thomson (Australia) on the roofs; a second live painting performance by Michel Platnic (France/Israel) and his team of local painters; plus a solo act by singing cellist and visual artist Syngja (Canada) underneath the stars. 

There is no cover charge but do bring some cash to make it rain on all this amazing talent — tipping the artists is part of the fun! Delicious herbal concoctions by Crystal Drip Elixirs will be on hand. Info

NOoSPHERE Arts, 520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Friday, August 25, 5pm: Last Chance to Dance at PS1

For Warm Up’s final act, Bobby Beethoven, Crystallmess, Diego Hauz and Embaci take the stage. Multidisciplinary virtuosa Embaci brings her celestial voice and lyricism to the first set of the night. Diego Hauzwill get the dance floor bumping with infectious beats and hip-hop sounds, infused with Latin American voice and rhythm. Crystallmess’s uncompromising DJ sets and electrifying dance-floor sound encompass hardcore rap and footwork. Bobby Beethoven, fka Total Freedom, leads us into the final set of the 2023 season with functional club music that will deliver exceptional vibes until the very last beat drop. Ticket includes admission to PS1’s two beloved exhibitions, closing September 4. So get your tickets online or at the door.Free for Long Island City Residents with proof of residency in ZIP codes 11101 and 11109 receive one complimentary ticket per event on a first-come, first-served basis. 

MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave, Queens, NY

Friday, September 1, 7pm: Classical Theatre of Harlem at Bryant Park

The Bryant Park Picnic Performances season of free, live performances, presented by Bank of America, continues with Young, Gifted and Black, featuring Tony Award Nominee Crystal Lucas-Perry, Emery Mason, Melissa Mosley, Kennedy, Roen Jones, and Edward W. Hardy.

Inspired by playwright Lorraine Hansberry and songwriter Nina Simone, "To be young, gifted and Black" is a positive and uplifting message to celebrate resilience, pride and the endless promise of our youth. It refers to recognizing the unique talents, abilities, and potential they possess, and acknowledging the value and contributions they bring to society despite policies, various challenges and systemic barriers in their lives. This presentation is an expression of young excellence in New York City – a place that appreciates the worth and potential of those who are about to inherit this world. First come, first served, and free. Info

ttendees to Bryant Park Picnic Performances may bring their own food or purchase from on-site food and beverage vendors near the Lawn.  For the most current information please visit bryantpark.org/picnics.

Bryant Park is situated behind the New York Public Library between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues in New York City. 

CONTINUING around town
My Neighbors’ Garden | Lunchtime Tours at Madison Square Park

Bring your lunch on any Wednesday at noon for a tour of the Park’s summer installation Info Created by Sheila Pepe, this art piece in Madison Square Park brings colorful and unexpected materials that she croched into the green of the park. Sheila’s canopies and webs of string and cable ties, shoelaces, outsize sustainable rubber bands, and plant materials cling to the twenty-foot high supporting light poles that parkgoers can walk beneath. Heirloom vegetables and flowering vines grow up the crochet lines to the tree canopy, blending the artist’s materials with the natural world.

Madison Square Park, Enter at Fifth Avenue and 26^th; meet at the Farragut monument, New York, NY Map

Power of Trees at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Breathe more deeply as you explore this exhibition of sculpture commissioned by BBG in conjunction with the summer theme, Power of Trees. Curated by Cecilia André, in collaboration with the BIPOC artist alliance AnkhLave, the works by six artists are inspired by the notion of trees as community hosts—for people as well as for birds. While you’re there, you can pick up tips on how to nurture the trees on your block at the tree stewardship area.

“Many species depend on and thrive under the canopy of a single tree”, says André. “Within a tree resides an entire ecosystem of species that interact in mutualistic arrangements. Nevertheless, this same tree is susceptible to parasites that may drain the system’s riches.The AnkhLave Garden Project aims to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities that experiment with many possibilities of interactions within their ‘canopies.’” Info

In The Heart of the Tree, above, by Natsuki Takauji, colored hand-blown glass pieces, resembling IV drips, hang like fruits from a twisted heart-like trunk while also watering a planter inside of the dome. “While the dying tree is alarming and blaming us,” says Takauji, “it remains a source of life.”  

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 150 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY Directions Related events and public programs here 

PRANK at City Hall Park

Sculptor Phyllida Barlow left behind a massive legacy when she died this year at the age of 78. Her oeuvre features what the artist called “nonmonumental” works, which she often created using everyday materials such as plywood and styrofoam. At City Hall Park at the Southern tip of Manhattan, a series of sculptures titled PRANK (2022–2023) highlights some of Barlow’s best work — and some of the last pieces she created before she passed away. The sculptor stacked replicas of furniture in precarious piles and decorated them with her famous bunny ears. 

City Hall Park, Broadway and Chambers Streets, Civic Center, New York, NY

Penetrable at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library

In the northern reaches of Manhattan, the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in Morningside Heights is open again after over five years of renovations, a two-month labor strike, and a June union win for its workers. Outside its entrance, the museum is showcasing a spectacular 1990 sculptural work by Jesús Rafael Soto in celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the Venezuelan Kinetic artist’s birth. The immersive 42-foot installation comprises an aluminum and steel frame draped with golden plastic hoses that visitors are invited to walk through, activating the artwork. Nearby, the museum is also exhibiting Marta Chilindron’s “Orange Cube 48” (2023).

Hispanic Society Museum and Library, 613 West 155th Street, Morningside Heights, New York, NY

Hope and Life Dance at Riverside Park

In a clever reflection on community healing, pandemic-era surgical masks transform into ceramic birds that escape sky-bound from a sculpture’s frame in Helen Draves’s “Hope” (2023). The work is one of two installations that comprise this year’s edition of the Art Students League’s Works in Public at Riverside Park South. Visitors can stroll along the Hudson while taking in “Hope” as well as Susan Markowitz Meredith’s “LIFE DANCE” (2023), both optimistic commentaries on interpersonal and community care. 

Riverside Park South, 59th Street Entrance, West Side, New York, NY

The Sculpture Garden at the Noguchi Museum

The Noguchi Museum’s sculpture garden is one of New York City’s most peaceful oases. Noguchi himself arranged the garden in the early 1980s. Occasionally a plant will be replaced or a sculpture will be removed for repair, but for the most part, the idyllic garden exists just as the Japanese-American artist intended. It’s a tranquil and inspiring space to read, draw, meditate, or simply sit with nature and art.

The Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Road, Long Island City, Queens

 Pond Blossoms and Watching Over You at Morningside Park Pond 

After launching a community petition earlier this year, Harlem residents secured a victory in June when the city’s parks department and Columbia Universit agreed to partner to clean up the algae-filled pond in Morningside Park. Now, Elizabeth Knowles and Eric Laxman’s “Pond Blossoms” and Simon Rigg’s “Watching Over You,” two new public installations, areon view through November. They comprise three floating sculptures shaped like flowers and a ceramic kimono that looks out over the pond from underneath the whimsical branches of a willow tree.

Morningside Park Pond, 113th Street, New York, NY 

All images provided by the organizers