Best Outdoor Art Shows This Summer
What to see around the city this summer, pleating with an elite fashion designer at the Brooklyn Museum, and hi from Rhea!
Hello! My name is Rhea, and I’m coming up on my fourth year as a staff writer at Hyperallergic.
Our beloved Lisa has kindly handed me the mic for the New York newsletter now that she's based in Iowa City. Thankfully, she's still working with Hyperallergic, but she's certainly a tough act to follow in this particular department. Nevertheless, I’m pleased to share some details about MoMA PS1’s new courtyard commission, in which an interactive garden installation toes the line between Eden and hedon by way of a giant teddybear’s rectum.
No, this is not the premise of a fanfiction story for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland … We’re just talking about Precious Okoyomon’s Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation, which “transforms the concrete corner of the museum into a place of joy, exploration, and, dare I say, tranquility,” per Hyperallergic’s co-founder and Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian. On view for the next two years, Okoyomon’s installation is high on our list of 15 must-see outdoor art shows across all five boroughs.
For those who prefer foolproof air conditioning over unpredictable weather patterns, I might suggest a visit to the Brooklyn Museum for a monumental exhibition devoted to Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen. An established name in celebrity and haute couture, van Herpen is best known for her gravity-defying, 3D-printed designs that take structural inspiration from the natural world. One of our contributors, Livia Caligor, had a chance to both speak and pleat with the designer onsite at the makeshift atelier featured in the exhibition.
Running from my own thoughts on the treadmill we call life, I often forget about how privileged I am to live in a city bursting at the seams with culture and inspiration. Perhaps a visit to My Camera Is My Sketchbook at the Schoelkopf Gallery is in order, as Richard Estes’s visual reflections on New York City remind us that beauty can be appreciated and captured anywhere.
15 Outdoor Art Shows to See in NYC This Summer
Slide through a teddy bear, get weird with a neural network’s hallucinations, play ping-pong on an artist-made table, and so much more.
Read MoreFeatures
A Precious Garden Grows at MoMA PS1
Precious Okoyomon’s new work transforms the concrete corner of the museum courtyard into a place of joy, exploration, and, dare I say, tranquility. | Hrag Vartanian
Read MoreThe Day I Pleated With Iris van Herpen
A show at the Brooklyn Museum invites guests to work alongside the Dutch fashion designer in her recreated atelier. | Livia Caligor
Read MoreFrom Our Critics
Julia Curl
Walter Benjamin and the Edges of Photography at the Jewish Museum
“Photographs that aestheticize things while erasing their meaning are dangerous, [Benjamin] argued .... Practitioners can bathe the chimneys of a steel factory in the same soft light as the trees of a forest, but unlike the paintbrush, the camera creates an undeniable impression of reality. Beyond that, not only can photography glaze everything into something beautiful, but people (myself included) will happily eat it up.”
Gladys Lou
Ellen Pau: She Moves at SculptureCenter
“Water reappears in various forms .... Its changing states, from melting ice to evaporating mist, become a metaphor for Hong Kong herself — 'always on the verge of disappearing,' as late cultural theorist Ackbar Abbas puts it — leaving little time for reflection before new changes arrive.”
What Else Is Happening?
- The IFC Center is showing Wild Inside, a documentary about Flaco the owl! After the screening today, stay for a talk with Jacqueline Emery and David Lei, wildlife photographers and coauthors of Finding Flaco: Our Year with New York City’s Beloved Owl. (Tues Aug 4) [ifccenter.com]
- Enjoy an evening of artisans, vendors, live music, dance, and dialogue at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, welcoming artists from the Andean diaspora, including Amado Espinoza. (Wed Aug 5) [Bronx Music Hall]
- The Bronx Museum is teaming up with Wave Hill for a night of music, art, and community in celebration of David Antonio Cruz’s exhibition. (Fri Aug 7) [bronxmuseum.org]
- Bring your junk journal with you to the library for an evening of community crafting! (Fri Aug 7) [nypl.org]
- The Whitney's Free Friday Nights continues this week with live music by Flore Laurentienne. (Fri Aug 7) [whitney.org]
- Join Dancers for Palestine for a screening and discussion of short films exploring dance in Palestine and its diaspora. (Sat Aug 8) [interferencearchive.org]
- 8Ball Community is hosting a zine fair at the La Plaza Cultural Community Garden. (Sat Aug 8) [8Ball Community]
- Join Brooklyn Public Library for "Ancestors, Archives, and Art Making," a three-part workshop series in which participants will learn technical skills for preserving their family stories and ancestral-inspired artmaking. (Sat Aug 8) [bklynlibrary.org]
- The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts's new photo exhibition explores the surprising animal muses behind some of the world's greatest performers. Through Feb 2027) [nypl.org]
