this week in art

TOM FRIEDMAN: LOOKING UP

Tom Friedman’s “Looking Up” gazes up at the sky in the middle of busy Park Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

SCULPTURE ON PARK AVE.
Park Ave. & 53rd St.
Extended through September 5
www.luhringaugustine.com
looking up slideshow

These are some tough times, but Tom Friedman insists things are looking up with his large-scale sculpture, “Looking Up,” which is standing tall on the Park Ave. mall at Fifty-Third St. Rising 33.3 feet high, “Looking Up” depicts an elongated figure bending his head back almost impossibly to get a look at the sky, which everyone in New York gazes up at a little differently since 9/11. The work is made using styrofoam, stainless steel, crushed aluminum foil roasting pans, and lost wax casting to achieve its retro feel; the Giacometti-like man hovers near Lever House, where Friedman’s site-specific “Aluminum Foil” exhibition was on view in 2007; one of the pieces from that show, “Aluminum Foil Buddha,” is back in Lever House, meditating in a glass case, creating quite a dichotomy with his rather larger compatriot outside. Friedman previously staged a memorable show in 2001 at the New Museum of Contemporary Art using such found objects as toothpicks, aspirin, pencil shavings, sugar cubes, and soap. “He’s actually an analog artist in a digital world,” curator Robert Hobbs says in a video about the piece before noting the Zen-like quality of his work. Make sure to get up close and personal with “Looking Up” (a joint project of Luhring Augustine, Stephen Friedman Gallery, the Fund for Park Avenue, and NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program) to check out the strange but cool detail of the roasting pans, consider the balance between humor and earnestness, and wonder what the giant might be looking at; just beware of the busy Park Ave. traffic.

HARLEM WEEK 2016: SUMMER IN THE CITY / HARLEM DAY

Free outdoor screening of WHEN WE WERE KINGS is part of Harlem Week festival

West 135th St. between Malcolm X Blvd. & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Saturday, August 20, and Sunday, August 21, free, 12 noon – 10:00 pm
Festival continues through August 27
harlemweek.com

The annual Harlem Week festival continues August 20 with “Summer in the City” and August 21 with “Harlem Day,” two afternoons of a wide range of free special events along West 135th St. Saturday’s festivities include the Higher Education Fair & Expo, New Yorkers Are “Dancing in the Street” (with Alvin Ailey instructor Robin Dunn teaching a hip-hop ballet and African dance class, with WBLS DJs), the Fabulous Fashion Flava Show, the first day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a parade, sports clinics, health testing, arts & crafts, and more), Harlem Honeys & Bears swimming activities for seniors in the Hansborough Recreation Center, an International Vendors Village, the Uptown Saturday Concert paying tribute to Nina Simone, and the Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival screening in St. Nicholas Park of Leon Gast’s Oscar-winning 1996 documentary When We Were Kings, about Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s Rumble in the Jungle. Sunday’s Harlem Day celebration features the “Harlem and Havana Classics” Upper Manhattan Auto Show, tennis clinics, the “Village within Our Village” health village, the second day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a Back to School theme), an “International Roots of Jazz” program, the Upper Manhattan Small Business Expo & Fair, live music, dance, and spoken-word performances, a kids fashion show, and musical tributes to Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire leader Maurice White.

CONEY ISLAND SAND SCULPTING CONTEST 2016

A unique castle rises in annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Coney Island
Boardwalk between West Tenth & Twelfth Sts.
Saturday, August 20, free, 12 noon – 4:00 pm
718-266-4623
www.wearebcs.org
www.coneyisland.com

All kinds of sea creatures will be invading Coney Island on August 20, but no, it’s not a repeat of June’s Mermaid Parade. Instead, it’s the twenty-sixth annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest, as amateur and semiprofessional individuals and groups will create masterpieces in the Brooklyn sand, many with a nautical theme. It’s a blast watching the constructions rise from nothing into some extremely elaborate works of temporary art. Last year’s batch featured an octopus, Mount Rushmore, various monsters, a hippo, an alligator, a turtle, a cat, naked sunbathers, a man calling for a taxi, and, of course, numerous castles, including the adult team winner, “Hogwarts Castle,” by Joe Sloboda and Frank Russo, the adult individual champ, “Spirits of the Sea,” by John O’Keefe, and children’s group winner “Environmentalist” by Ari Blumenthal and Sasha Cohen. The event, which features cash prizes, is hosted by Astella Development Corporation and Brooklyn Community Services, with donations and sponsorship helping those still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. While visiting Coney Island on August 20, you should also check out the Coney Island Museum, the Circus Sideshow, and the Burlesque at the Beach presentation “SURFest: A Surrealist Manifesto,” which celebrates Salvador Dalí’s “Dream of Venus” and manifestos, in addition to riding the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel.

LIC BLOCK PARTY

lic block party

SculptureCenter
Purves St. at Jackson & 43rd Aves.
Saturday, August 20, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
www.sculpture-center.org

SculptureCenter, one of the coolest places to see art in the five boroughs, is hosting the annual LIC Block Party on August 20 in Queens. The free afternoon, taking place inside and outside the gallery, will include live performances by Erin Markey, Daisy Press, OTIUM, Jessica Lang Dance, and Bianca Benson, DJ sets by Tygapaw, activity booths by Schuyler Tsuda, Jeannine Han & Eliza Fisher, Sam Stewart, Lauren Halsey, Jan Mun & Gil Lopez, Sydney Shen, Emma Banay & David Scanlon’s Quilt Music, Other Means, and Diamond Stingily, and an artists market with booths by American Chordata, Desert Island, Fastnet, Mixed Media, Packet Biweekly, the Perfect Nothing Catalog, Peradam, Sanguis Ornatus, and Workaday Handmade. There will also be food and drink available from such local restaurants as Bartleby & Sage, Doughnut Plant, Hibino LIC, Rockaway Brewing Co., and Stolle USA. Among the partners in the block party are the American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Noguchi Museum, Sculpture Space NYC, and Socrates Sculpture Park.

ISA GENZKEN: TWO ORCHIDS

Isa Genzken’s “Two Orchids” are still in bloom at entrance to Central Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Scholars’ Gate, Doris C. Freedman Plaza
Central Park entrance, 60th St. & Fifth Ave.
Through August 26, free
www.publicartfund.org
two orchids slideshow

The annual Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden ended in April, but there are still two big-time orchids standing proud in the city. And we do mean big. Shortly after “Orchidelirum” opened on February 27 at the NYBG, German artist Isa Genzken installed “Two Orchids,” a pair of white orchids, one twenty-eight feet high, the other thirty-four feet high, in Doris C. Freedman Plaza, at the Scholars’ Gate entrance to Central Park. Genzken, who had a major retrospective at MoMA in 2013-14, works in multiple disciplines, including painting, photography, collage, film, drawing, sculpture, and more. She studied with such artists as Katharina Fritsch, Thomas Struth, and Thomas Schütte at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (and eventually married one of her professors, Gerhard Richter); in 2013, Schütte’s “United Enemies” was on view in Doris C. Freedman Plaza, and it later moved to MoMA’s sculpture garden, where Genzken’s thirty-six-foot-high “Rose II” can currently be seen (after previously hanging on the facade of the New Museum). “Whereas the red rose has long been a rather clichéd symbol of love, the orchid, once a more obscure and exotic bloom, has become increasingly ubiquitous,” curator and Public Art Fund director Nicholas Baume explained in a statement. “For Genzken, the decorative neutrality of the orchid makes it the quintessential flower of our period – global and porous to meaning.” Made of stainless steel, the orchids, which evoke both male and female sex organs, have been in full bloom since March 1, quite a sight against the green trees behind them and the blue sky and white clouds above, while also casting unique shadows on the ground. But their season is over soon, as they will be removed on August 26. “New York is a city of incredible stability and solidity,” Genzken told Wolfgang Tillmans in 2003. Although “Two Orchids” is based on a delicate, fragile flower, it has a noble stability and solidity that rubs off on all who experience its tender beauty.

DRAGON BOAT FAMILY FESTIVAL

dragon boat family festival

Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre St.
Saturday, August 13, $10 (advance RSVP required), 12 noon – 4:00
855-955-MOCA
www.mocanyc.org

If you missed last weekend’s Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, you still have a chance to capture much of the flavor of the traditional event on Saturday when the Museum of Chinese in America hosts the Dragon Boat Family Festival. The afternoon includes paper cutting with Shu-Shia Sanborn; a zongzi workshop with Sophia Hsu about the delicious traditional food, after which participants can create their own zongzi noisemaker; a workshop led by Shana Fung about how dragon boats function and what each crew members is responsible for; arts and crafts consisting of making dragon-inspired crowns, good-luck fabric sachets, and threaded symbolic bracelets; and storytelling about Qu Yuan and the history of the Dragon Boat Festival. In addition, you can check out the exhibitions “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America” and “Stage Design by Ming Cho Lee.”

SUMMER STREETS 2016

Giant slide is a highlight of Summer Streets program on Saturday mornings in August (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Giant slide is a highlight of Summer Streets program on first three Saturday mornings in August (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Park Ave. & 72nd St. to Foley Square
Saturday, August 6, 13, 20, free, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm
www.nyc.gov

Now in its seventh year, Summer Streets takes place the next three Saturday mornings, as Park Ave. will be closed to vehicular traffic from 72nd St. to Foley Square and the Brooklyn Bridge from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm, encouraging people to walk, run, jog, blade, skate, slide, and bike down the famous thoroughfare, getting exercise and enjoying the great outdoors without car exhaust, speeding taxis, and slow-moving buses. There are five rest stops along the route (Uptown at 52nd St., Midtown at 25th, Astor Pl. at Lafayette St., SoHo at Spring & Lafayette, and Foley Square at Duane & Centre), where people can stop for some food and drink, live performances, fitness classes, site-specific art installations, dog walks, bicycle workshops, and other activities, all of which are free. Below are some of the highlights.

Foley Square Rest Stop
Beachside Slide (advance preregistration required,) Adaptive Obstacle Challenge, “On Display / CitiSummerStreets” living sculpture by Heidi Latsky, “M2B, Beijing-New York” mobile bike sculpture by Niko de la Fey, historical reenactors, Department of Design and Construction: The Art and Construction of NYC’s Water Supply, Bronx Museum of the Arts workshop (August 20)

SoHo Rest Stop
Fitness classes, free bike repair and rentals, parkour fitness demonstrations, Museum of Chinese in America “Dragon Boat Crown Making” (August 6 & 20), Storefront for Art and Architecture “Manhattanisms” (August 13)

Astor Place Rest Stop
“Make It Here” interactive programs (athletics, social media vending machines, fashion showcases, Paws and Play Dog Park, “Los Trompos (Spinning Tops)” by Hector Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena

Midtown Rest Stop
A Taste of Summer Sampling Zone, Kid Bike Park, pop-up yoga, hand-cycle demonstration, helmet fittings, free bike rentals and repair, “GrowNYC Zero Waste Programs,” live dance, theater, and musical performances

August 6
Connor Larkin, Kelly Wright, the Other Brothers, Moondrunk

August 13
JHEVERE, Phone Home, Music with a Message, Evolfo

August 20
Orin Kurtz, Backtrack Vocals, Darrah Carr Dance, Drew and Joanne

Uptown Rest Stop
DOT Safety Zone, Zipline, “Unlimited NYC” athletics, Hallmark “Sounds of Shore” installation, “Make It Here” interactive programs (live performances, food tastings, sharing love stories), bike art party, Municipal Art Society tours, tai chi, Museum of the City of New York’s “Pushing Buttons: NYC Activism”

August 6
American Folk Art Museum’s “Families & Folk Art,” Publicolor’s “Color and Creativity, Sirens of Gotham, Receta Secreta, the Afro-Latineers, Robert Anderson Band, Stiletta, Washington Square Winds, Society of Illustrators’ “Draw and Groove Party,” Materials for the Arts’ “Found Object Flowers”

August 13
Risa Puno’s interactive “Win or Lose” game, ArchForKids’ “The Big Build,” Design Trust for Public Space’s “Under the Elevated,” National Museum of the American Indian’s “Inspired by Native/Indigenous Design,” Taliah Lempert’s “Street Smart Bike Art,” BumbleBee Jamboree, DreamStreet Theatre Company, Niall O’Leary School of Irish Dance, City Stompers, dancing classrooms

August 20
National Museum of the American Indian’s “Inspired by Native/Indigenous Design,” Taliah Lempert’s “Street Smart Bike Art,” “Poets House Imagination Station,” Art Gowanus workshop, Groundswell’s “Visualize Your Artist Skills,” New York Violinist Susan Keser, Opera Collective, Art of Stepping, Exit 12 Dance Group