All posts tagged: Central Park

Snow In Day in NYC : Let’s Head to the Park

February 11, 2017 Artists

Art in the Streets! Art in the park!

Okay, a really loose interpretation here, but who can deny that the hand of nature often looks like it belongs to an artist?

Central Park. February 2017. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This week New York was clobbered in a frosty white powdery art material that masked out so much, drawing attention to what remained visible. It also suddenly had new sculptural qualities, full of volume, motion, sloping curves, density, texture.

All of it was interactive. Beckoning for your participation.

Central Park. February 2017. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Our own Jaime Rojo took off to Central Park to see and capture the myriad ways that people and animals played in, around, on top of, and underneath the snow.

Hope you’ll find some creative inspiration and enjoy this walk in the park.

Central Park. February 2017. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Manhattan Sheep Find Greener Grass in Chelsea

September 18, 2013 Artists

New York City has a beautiful sheep’s meadow.

It is fifteen grassy acres so-named in Central Park where 200 or so sheep lived for a number of generations in the mid-18th to 19th century, and later it became home to “love-ins”, concerts, and sunbathing. This week Manhattan officially has a second pasture for sheep to graze, although the rolling hills are much smaller and the sheep are slightly more stylized – and the site is a gas station in Chelsea.

Sheep Station with works by François-Xavier Lalanne at a former Getty filling station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The surrealist scene will catch the eye of a hard driving taxi driver who used to top the tank off at this stop, but the month-long pastoral venue that officially opened yesterday will also make them crack a smile when they see the 25 epoxy stone and bronz “moutons” by François-Xavier Lalanne grazing around. One half of Les Lalannes with his wife Claude Lalanne, the French sculptor exhibited many iterations and new additions of his sheep beginning in the 1960s until his passing five years ago.

The new installation by real estate developer Michael Shvo in partnership with Paul Kasmin Gallery along 10th Avenue is similar to the work Les Lalannes would have done together in that it combines his interest in the sculptural and hers in vegetation and the natural world. In fact this French countryside hemmed in by white fencing will need to be mowed by humans, a job that real sheep would have gladly taken care of.

Sheep Station with works by François-Xavier Lalanne at a former Getty filling station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You can imagine this public art show to be a corresponding component to an art fan’s day in Manhattan if they saw the upcoming Magritte exhibition at MoMA, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 and then stopped by the Sheep Station on their way to a stroll along the nearby Highline in all its autumnal splendor. The orchestrated natural otherworld installation wanders freely between high concept and decorative and you’ll probably find this curious little patch of grass is an unusually welcoming pit stop, a psychological breath of fresh country air for the post-industrial traveler.

Sheep Station with works by François-Xavier Lalanne at a former Getty filling station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A wall piece installed earlier for another event remains from Street Artist/photographer JR and painter José Parlá. Sheep Station with works by François-Xavier Lalanne at a former Getty filling station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sheep Station with works by François-Xavier Lalanne at a former Getty filling station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The public exhibition runs until October 20th and you can read more about Sheep Station at http://gettystation.com/

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Free Art on the Street! PaperGirl Surprises NYC With Original Idea

September 16, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Manhattan, NYC, On the Street, Queens

331 rolls of art, 9 bikes, 3 boroughs, 3 bridges, 6 hours of insane fun, 1 sunny day.

Yesterday BSA participated in the first annual PaperGirl NYC where pieces of original art were handed out for free to incredulous recipients in Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, The Lower East Side, Union Square, The Meat Packing District, The West End Highway, The Upper West Side, Central Park, The Upper East Side and Long Island City.

Art-gifting bike riders preparing at 3rd Ward before hitting the streets. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

NewYorkers can be suspicious when it comes to free stuff on the street from strangers. Curious like cats, they love schwaaaaaag, and they’ll grab shiny packaged free gum, energy drinks or diet nut bars from corporate vans and pickup trucks wrapped in splashy advertisements. Sometimes they’ll even wait, flirt and be nice to you to get a free sample of whatever food or drink it is that you are presenting to them.

But if you are pushing free original one of a kind pieces of free art – the responses can range from just flat out “no thank you”, to just “no” or a shake of their head. And that’s when they are being nice. In many cases they will just ignore you or give you nasty looks. Other times they’ll give you a hug and pose for pictures. You just never know.

Manhattanites are a tough crowd indeed. The number of people that rejected the free art in Manhattan was very surprising to many of us. The crowds in Union Square Park, for example, had little interest in free art and the same pretty much goes for the rest of the island. Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint and Long Island City residents were far more receptive and nice to our overtures and when they heard “It’s free art” you would see their faces light up and take the art with a big smile.

The people waiting in line to enter the studios TV show The Colbert Report were definitely not interested. When one standee timidly reached out to grab the art being handed to him on the sidewalk, a studio security guard promptly snatched the art from his hands and proceeded to lecture us about the dangers of handing down anything to them.

“These people, waiting in line, they belong to The Colbert Report,” he intoned with a straight face.

Of course when we challenged that ridiculous assertion of a public street somehow containing people who were enslaved and controlled by a television show, he became a bit more conciliatory. He explained that it was a matter of courtesy not to give free art to these people. The Colbert Report fans can’t enter the show with rolls of paper that might offend the host or gasp! the audiences back at home. Got it.

PaperGirl NY is a collective of artists and art lovers that put out a call to artists to create art and to participate on this adventure. Artists from 12 countries responded and the art was shown briefly in New York City and in Albany before it was rolled up and given away. It was street art indeed. The concept is different from what you normally consider street art to be but the art was on the streets and this time some lucky people got to take it home.

The notion that someone would reject free art, or anything free for that matter seemed alien. The enthusiasm and glee in which those that accepted the art were contagious and pure joy to watch. That made the day an unforgettable one… and the weather was perfect.

To learn more about PaperGir-NY please visit the site below:

∆∆ Sina B. Hickey ∆∆
∆∆ PaperGirl-NYState ∆∆
Founder and Lead Organizer
518.379.7642, PaperGirl.Albany@gmail.com
Bringing Art from the Gallery to the Street
www.PaperGirl-NY.com
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