Continue your summer art escapes into fall with stops across Harlem; then plan some day and weekend trips from Upstate to Long Island.

Harlem Sculpture Gardens, NY

Harlem Sculpture Gardens is a multi-site exhibition, curated to spread joy and beauty within the Harlem community. The exhibition features two dozen works by artists of color documenting identity, diaspora, and Harlem tradition across local public parks, on view until October. Bailey-McClain, director of West Harlem Arts Fund, and Michael Gormley, director of New York Artists Equity Association, co-curated the show from a pool of submissions to an open call. Above: Carol Diamond and Ben La Rocco “Playdate,” in Morningside Park

Artists exhibiting in Morningside Park include Margaret Roleke, Miguel Otero Fuentes, Jaleeca Yancy, Peter Miller, Zura Bushurishvili, the team of Carol Diamond and Ben LaRocco, and Reuben Sinha. In St. Nicholas Park, artworks by Luke Schumacher, the team of Felipe Jacome and Svetlana Onipko, Carole Eisner, Dianne Smith, the team of Dario Mohr and Cody Umans, and Heather Williams. Further uptown, Jackie Robinson Park hosts works by Zura Bushurishvili, Vera Tineo, ByeongDon Moon, Iliana Emilia Garcia, Kraig Blue, and Michael Poast.

This exhibition is presented by West Harlem Art Fund and New York Artists Equity Association.

The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens / Pepsico, in Purchase

This sculpture park, located at at the PepsiCo world headquarters in Purchase. New York, just 45 minutes from Manhattan features a collection of 45 works by internal artists  including Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti. The gardens were created by renowned landscape designer Russell Page, who sited the sculptures to complement their setting. Page’s “Golden Path” winds through the grounds, allowing visitors to connect with both natural and human-made treasures. It’s a delightful place to spend a weekend afternoon. Open weekends through November 19..Just across the road,  the Neuberger Museum at SUNY Purchase features a fine collection of 20^th-century artwork as well as temporary exhibitions. Info

700 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY. Info

 Arlene Shechet: Girl Group at Storm King Art Center

Storm King Art Center is a 500-acre outdoor museum located in New York’s Hudson Valley, where visitors experience large-scale sculpture and site-specific commissions under open sky. Since 1960, Storm King has been dedicated to stewarding the hills, meadows, and forests of its site and surrounding landscape. 

Storm King now features more than 100 pieces by some of the most prominent sculptors of the last hundred years. The permanent collection includes works by Maya Lin, Mark di Suvero, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Andy Goldsworthy, David Smith and Richard Serra, among others. Storm King complements its permanent display with special exhibitions and installations. Currently, Arlene Shechet: Girl Group brings together the artist’s recent work in wood, steel, ceramic, paper, and bronze with six new monumental sculptures created for Storm King. 

Through her signature emphasis on process and improvisation, Shechet (American, b. 1951) harnesses the expressive power of geometry, line, color, and form in works displayed across Storm King’s hills, fields, and galleries. The artist maintains a spirit of constant discovery as she mines the possibilities of multiple sculptural materials, experimenting with their capacity to hold color and light while creating form and volume.  Through November 10. Note: The artist herself will lead a tour of her installation tomorrow, at 4pm: info

20 Old Pleasant Hill Road, New Windsor, NY Info

Art Omni, Ghent

Art Omi presents the work of contemporary artists and architects, featuring a range of large-scale installations in nature and rotating exhibitions in the Newmark Gallery. 

Currently featured is Jimenez Lai: Outcasts from the Underground, in which the architect unearths intentionally obfuscated artifacts and the narratives they illuminate. Inspired by the outdoor display of a local precast concrete manufacturer, the work is comprised of prefabricated concrete items designed to be buried, such as septic tanks, catchment basins, and basement staircases. Waste, seepage, and other matters below ground: these precast parts are the outcast characters we put to sleep the moment they are brought into life. 

1405 County Route 22 Ghent, NY Info

Opus 40, Saugerties

“In a culture of disposability that celebrates slackers, says David Wallis, “Opus 40 not only constitutes what Brendan Gill described in Architectural Digest in March 1989 as one of ‘the most beguiling works of art on the entire continent,’ but stands as a monument to discipline and hard work. Harvey Fite, a self-taught sculptor who was born in 1903 and died in 1976, labored more than half his life to build it.

For more than 40 years, Opus 40 has showcased the harmony between art and nature in the Hudson Valley. Set just outside of central Saugerties, the artistic venue’s claim to fame is a 6.5-acre sculpture park with a number of unique features, including 16 feet of subterranean pathways and a nine-ton monolith at the summit. Visitors are free to traverse the three stories up to the top, then take in the incredible view of Overlook Mountain when they reach the peak.

356 George Sickle Road, Saugerties, NY Info

Hudson River Skywalk

Between the river towns of Hudson and Catskill, connecting Thomas Cole and Frederic Church’s historic homes, is the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. The bridge, also known as the Hudson River Skywalk, connects these two important figures in American art history and offers a new way to experience the places they called home. Be inspired as you traverse the Hudson River, and explore the grounds of both Cole’s home, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Church’s Home, Olana State Historic Site. Free and open to the public dusk to dawn every day. No pets, please

99 Route 23, Catskill, NY Info

Olana State Hisstoric Site, Hudson

Olana’s 250-acre naturalistic landscape is one of Frederic Church’s great works of art, and it exists today as one of the most intact artist-designed landscapes in the United States. His large-scale composition included a working and ornamental farm, meadows, outbuildings, an “artificial” lake, native woodlands, and more than five miles of carriage roads, so that visitors could move through and experience Olana’s crafted foreground against a backdrop of sublime and far-reaching views—or viewshed—beyond the grounds.

Olana’s 250-acre landscape is free and open every day from 8:00 am to sunset. For information on tours and events, go here

5720 State Route 9G, Hudson, NY Info

Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Tucked into the lush landscape of Catskill, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site [TCNHS] presents the original home and studios of the early environmentalist-artist who founded the influential art movement now recognized as the Hudson River School.

Curated by Scott Manning Stevens, the 2024 special exhibition Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape features a series of historic artifacts and contemporary artworks that juxtapose an indigenous approach to land with the paintings of Thomas Cole, highlighting the paramount importance of our relationship with the earth. Through October 27. 
TCNHS also offers The Hudson River School Art Trail, self-guided tours of the places where these artists painted. Info

218 Spring Street, Catskill, New York  Info

Griffis Sculpture Park, East Otto, NY

Griffis Sculpture Park, one of America’s oldest and largest sculpture parks, features 250 large-scale structures of steel and other materials that reside in the woods, fields, and ponds of this sprawling 450-acre site. A series of hiking trails will lead you to these works of sculpture installed amid the natural landscape. Beginning on September 13, the park emits an eerie glow during Night Lights, a special event that bathes the landscape and sculptures in theatrical lighting produced by  SitlerHQ. The park is open from sunrise to sunset through October 31.

6902 Mill Valley Road, East Otto NY Info

Cary Hill Sculpture Park, Salem, NY

Travel along four miles of old logging trails through the sprawling 120-acres of Salem Art Works’ Cary Hill Sculpture Park, east of Saratoga. The site showcases impressive rotating sculptures by regional, national, and international artists on the grounds of a former dairy farm. A trek up the hilltop provides 360-degree views of the Green Mountains and its surroundings. With camping allowed on the property and fire pits available, you can turn this into a true outdoor art retreat under the stars. Trucks are permitted on site. Open every day.

19 Cary Lane, Salem, NY Info

Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor

The grand former Frick Estate in the heart of Long Island’s fabled Gold Coast which now houses the Nassau County Museum of Art, features a 145-acre sculpture park. Here, more than 40 works by 30 sculptors is located throughout its 145 acres of fields, woods, ponds, the formal gardens of the William Cullen Bryant Preserve—and six miles of walking trails. With sculpture created over the past 100 years, from 1913 to 2018. To view and download a Sculpture Map, click here.

One Museum Drive,Roslyn Harbor, NY Info

Carmen Herrera: Estructuras Monumentales, Parrish Art Museum, 

The Parrish Art Museum which grew from a small village art gallery on Long Island’s East End into a collection of more than 2,600 works by contemporary artists, is housed in a show-stopping building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. It also utilizes its 14 acres of grassy meadows to showcase important sculpture art. Herrer’s sculptures remain on view through Dec. 8

279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, New York Info

LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton

As part of our internationally recognized Art in the Gardens program, Jack Lenor Larsen and the LHR Arts Committee have assembled a collection of more than 60 contemporary sculptures in the LongHouse gardens. Throughout the 16-acre site, permanent works are on display along with those on seasonal loan from artists, collectors, and dealers. Whether you return to see an old favorite or walk the grounds in search of a new installation, LongHouse entices with noteworthy works and magnificent vistas. Above: Lynda Benglis "Cloak Wave-Pedmarks

The large new house (partially open to the public) was inspired by the 7th century Shinto shrine at Ise, Japan. LongHouse Reserve has been established in 1991 on the property to reflect founder Jack Lenor Larsen’s professional interests and his desire to encourage creativity in gardening and in collecting and every day living with art.

133 Hands Creek Road, East Hampton NY Info