10 Public Artworks to See Across the US This Fall
Camille Henrot’s pack of dogs take Central Park, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz leads a procession through Philadelphia, and Sara Genn paints the sky in Santa Fe.
The best things in life are free, as Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross once sang. While a $30 museum ticket goes against that age-old ethos, we can rejoice this fall in the wealth of free public art sprouting across New York City and beyond. Some of the artists behind these highlighted interventions seek to ground us in our environments, while others transport us to new realities altogether. Some stoke newfound appreciations for what's always been right in front of us, and others ask us to consider how and why things could be different.
Jane D. Marsching recognizes trees as historic witnesses in Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood, and Camille Henrot makes her public art debut at Central Park with "Dogs" (2026). In a major outdoor activation in St. Louis, Kite invokes Lakȟóta cosmology through geometric symbols and other signifiers. And in Philadelphia, a procession led by Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz will channel different experiences of migration from a diasporic Puerto Rican perspective. With an overarching emphasis on art for everybody, these site-specific installations, public performances, and interactive experiences infuse our daily routines with moments of curiosity, contemplation, and comedic relief.
New York City
Julien Creuzet, "Nos diables rouges, nos dérives commotions (...) danse papillon"
Midnight Moment at Times Square, Broadway from 41st to 49th Street, Theater District, Manhattan
Nov. 1–Nov. 30
In this video work, the French-Caribbean artist introduces a horned and masqueraded figure evoking the red devils that course through the streets during Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) — the festive peak of Martinique’s Carnival. Reflecting on how the devils’ annual appearance opens a channel to buried histories and lost worlds, Creuzet’s anonymized protagonist is juxtaposed with the tales of Saint George and the dragon, and Perseus and Andromeda, in a fluid exchange of significance and veneration.
Amol K. Patil, "The Voices Cast in Dust"
The High Line at 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Oct. 2026–Sept. 2027
Along 24th Street on the High Line, a monumental cast-bronze sculpture ensnares a quarrel between humans in a singular, hapless mass in which desperate limbs jut outwards in an effort to move upward or make a lateral escape. Finding parallels between the struggles of the working class and marginalized people of Mumbai and New York, Patil’s sculpture highlights the urban labor landscape’s contradictory dichotomy of growth through cooperative effort and a ruthless, everyone-for-themselves mentality.
Christopher Williams, "MODEL (High Line Billboard, 18th Street and 10th Avenue, New York, 10011)"
The High Line Billboard, 18th Street and 10th Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
September–November 2026
It is what it is, until it isn’t … Christopher Williams continues his decades-long media criticism with the word MODEL, which appears as if it’s been ripped off the headline of a heavily retouched editorial photoshoot, blown up, and pasted on the High Line’s billboard. Only, it’s not that. Williams’s rendering of the word reveals unsettling evidence of the human hand and unrefined textures that subtly contrast with the gleaming high-rises that serve as the billboard’s glamorous backdrop.
Camille Henrot, "Dogs"
Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, Manhattan
Through Aug. 29, 2027
As the artist’s first public exhibition in New York City, Dogs holds a mirror to the concrete jungle’s ballooning obsession with canine culture through a variety of sculptures that start as zany and endearing, but reveal themselves as dimensional probes into the nature of attachment, domestication, and dependency. Across a variety of hard, weather-resistant materials, Henrot’s sculptures invoke noteworthy references to dogs across history, pop culture, society, and media in a sustained exploration of the species’ traits of loyalty and sociability.
Across the US
Tom Burr, "Roses"
Counterpublic House, St. Louis, Missouri
Sept. 10–Dec. 12
Contrary to the name, there aren't any flowers in Tom Burr’s rose-named installation behind the Counterpublic Triennial’s HQ in St. Louis. Instead, the conceptual artist gestures beyond the garden bed, bringing park infrastructure, rose-tinted mirrors, and chain-link fences in dialogue with queer history-at-a-slant, drawing upon the legacy of Rose Williams, the institutionalized sister of the openly gay playwright, Tennessee Williams.
Kite, "Wíhaŋyablapi (of St. Louis)"
Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, Missouri
Sept. 10–Dec. 12
Across Lakȟóta quillwork and beadwork, intricate geometric patterns emerge in an accretive process, tapping into a deep cultural reservoir between minute human action and the cosmos. Oglála Lakȟóta artist, composer, and performer Kite renders these patterns on a massive scale with boulders and plants for this new outdoor sculpture commissioned by Counterpublic.
Jane D. Marsching, "Tree Care"
Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts
Sept. 10–Nov. 8
The trees of Hyde Park have seen a lot, including the training of the first all-Black army unit in the Northern states during the Civil War, the 1870s Women’s March and Vote, and tensions over school desegregation in the 1970s. As a range of environmental factors now threaten to reduce the longstanding urban canopy, Jane D. Marsching tags 1,000 trees in Boston’s southernmost neighborhood with a textile tag encouraging the public to view each tree as an indispensable community member.
Sara Genn, "Ladder to the Sky"
SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Oct. 16–Jan.11, 2027
Sara Genn’s monochromatic gradient paintings are satisfying in the same way that a paint swatch strip at Benjamin Moore is — and in more ways, of course. Ahead of her first solo institutional exhibition, How to Build a Sky, Genn splashed an exterior wall of SITE Santa Fe with a blue gradient mural that flows seamlessly into the azure New Mexico sky.
Saif Azzuz, "Entryways"
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sept. 26–Sept. 12, 2027
We often first see a museum through its windows. As part of the ICA’s Entryways series, Yurok artist Saif Azzuz paints renditions of Philadelphia’s natural environment directly on the museum’s windows, drawing upon his work based on Indigenous symbolisms and northern California plant life.
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, "Vámonos pa’l monte (Let’s Go to the Mountains)"
Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
October 17
Inspired by the migration stories that undergird the Puerto Rican diaspora, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz leads a festive four-mile processional performance from Philadelphia’s City Hall to Norris Square Park. Like the Puerto Rican-inspired garments she adds or sheds along her route, various members of the public are expected to filter in and out throughout the celebration, reflecting the diverse paths within migration.
