Check Out All This New Art & Insane Crowding On The High Line

Scott Lynch

Published Apr 27, 2018

Modified Apr 27, 2018

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Scott Lynch/Gothamist

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Scott Lynch

Published Apr 27, 2018

Modified Apr 27, 2018

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It seemed like everyone who was within the city limits decided to take a stroll along the High Line last weekend. The enormous crowds don't always make for a peaceful experience, and they certainly aren't ideal for art viewing. Still, there is an engaging new exhibition in the elevated park—Agora, a site-wide group show that was just installed last week and will run through March of 2019. Which means you have ample opportunity to check it out during off-hours, like weekdays, early mornings, and (because several of the works light up) at night.

Just a leisurely stroll in the park. (Scott Lynch/Gothamist)

If the above image is scaring you off, here's a look at a few of the exhibition's highlights, all of which in some way explore how art can define, create, enhance, and/or educate within a public space.

Los Angeles artist Sable Elyse Smith created the over-sized IRONWOODLAND sculpture at 24th Street—the piece is actually called C.R.E.A.M., like the Wu Tang song—styled after the famous sign in her home city and alluding to both the Ironwood State Prison and the original, aggressively-segregated Hollywoodland real estate development.
Andrea Bowers, another LA-based artist, has focused on the plight off DREAMers, the undocumented immigrants who arrived here as kids, have grown up in this country, and are now threatened with deportation by a cruel government. Bowers's High Line piece, located near the Standard, is a two-sided neon sign that reads Somos 11 Milliones / We Are 11 Million.
An Omaskêko Ininiwak artist from Moose Cree First Nation, Duane Linklater has installed a series of white wood tripods along the tracks from about 27th to 31st Streets, structures that evoke teepees—an example of simple, sustainable, mobile architecture—and stand in sharp contrast to the relentless construction of luxury housing that towers over this stretch of the park.
Beneath the High Line's southern terminus at Gansevoort Street, Italian artist Marinella Senatore has built a public piazza of sorts simply by adding festive lights to the elevated structure. And when people stop and congregate there, they have this message installed into the ceiling to contemplate: "Give your daughters difficult names," the first line of a poem by feminist Warsan Shire.

(Scott Lynch/Gothamist)

Not part of the Agora show but also new this season is Dorothy Iannone's mural I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door, which is the last line of Emma Lazarus's poem The New Colossus, promising refuge, opportunity, and freedom for immigrants. The mural is located near the lawn at 22nd Street.

And if you need some refreshment while you're up there, the High Line food vendors are all back in business, led by the paletas (ice pops) at La Newyorkina, the empanadas at La Sonrisa, the Venezuelan-style hot dogs at Perros y Vainas, and the ice cream sandwiches at Melt.

Tagged

agora

high line

public art

original