Annual Summer Solstice Celebration in Socrates Sculpture Park features live music, art workshops, paddling, wrestling, and more
Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Blvd.
Friday, June 21, free, 5:00 – 9:30
718-956-1819
www.socratessculpturepark.org
It’s time to celebrate the longest day of the year, midsummer, on June 21, as festivals take place all over the Northern Hemisphere. In Long Island City, the annual Summer Solstice Celebration in Socrates Sculpture Park consists of a bevy of free activities from 5:00 to 9:30, offering the opportunity for the mind, body, and soul to restore their connection to the natural and spiritual worlds, specifically in relation Mayan tradition. There will be face painting by Agostino Arts, art workshops sponsored by Free Style Arts Association, Materials for the Arts, the Noguchi Museum, and the Queens Museum of Art, a costume workshop, walk-up paddling courtesy of Astoria Boaters and the LIC Community Boathouse, a Mexican wrestling demonstration by Lucha Libre, yoga with Monique Schubert, Mexican cuisine, and a solstice ritual with Urban Shaman Mama Donna before concluding with a community drum circle led by Toca & Alé Alé Drummers. While at Socrates, be sure to check out the current main exhibition, the twentieth anniversary of “do it (outside),” in which dozens of artists interpret instructions by the likes of Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Joan Jonas, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, Bruce Nauman, Ernesto Neto, Martha Rosler, Paul McCarthy, and many others. In addition, there’s also Heather Rowe’s “Beyond the Hedges (Slivered Gazebo),” Chitra Ganesh’s “Broadway Billboard: Her Nuclear Waters,” and Toshihiro Oki architect pc’s “FOLLY: tree wood.”