Aïda Muluneh: This is where I am

Opening March 1
JCDecaux Bus Shelters Across New York City, Boston, Chicago, United States, & Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Nicholas Galanin: In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra

Opening May 16 Brooklyn Bridge Park

Phyllida Barlow: PRANK

Opening June 7
City Hall Park, Lower Manhattan

Felipe Baeza: Unruly Forms

Opening August 9
JCDecaux Bus Shelters Across New York City, Boston, & Chicago

Public Art Fund announces its 2023 spring and summer exhibition program with four new exhibitions across four cities and two continents, featuring a diverse group of artists at different stages of their careers working across photography, sculpture, and works on paper, grappling with an expanse of complex, playful, and deeply human concepts.

The 2023 season launches in March with Aïda Muluneh’s international, multi-city presentation of 12 new photographs, marking both the artist’s and Public Art Fund’s first public art presentation in Côte d’Ivoire. Vibrantly hued and rich with symbolism, the deeply personal series, This is where I am, explores the artist’s experiences and reflections on the various personal, social, and political histories of the Ethiopian region. In May, Nicholas Galanin will debut In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra in Brooklyn Bridge Park. A corten steel sculpture built with the materials and scale of the US/Mexico border wall, Galanin’s work reflects on the continued legacy of colonization and occupation of Land, Water, and life. Phyllida Barlow will usher in the summer season in June with a new body of steel and fiberglass sculptures in City Hall Park. Her first significant series of outdoor sculptures made from robust materials, PRANK marks a departure from Barlow’s typical use of low-grade materials, while continuing her exploration of whimsical and playful invented forms and unlikely combinations. Debuting in August on JCDecaux bus shelters, Felipe Baeza‘s new series, Unruly Forms, will draw on his research of Mesoamerican artifacts in museum collections across New York City, Chicago, and Boston, uncovering how these objects’ function, power, and context are impacted by their displacement and display in institutions.

“Spanning generations, traversing the continents of North and Central America, Europe, and Africa, and practicing in a range of mediums such as photography, printmaking, painting and sculpture, each of these four artists has developed an original artistic language that engages with history in articulating contemporary themes,” said Artistic & Executive Director Nicholas Baume, “These varied and striking public artworks will invite us to reflect on who we are and where we stand in both time and place.”

Aïda Muluneh: This is where I am

Opening March 1

JCDecaux Bus Shelters Across New York City, Boston, Chicago, United States, & Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Aïda Muluneh will share a new series of 12 photographs on over 330 JCDecaux bus shelters across New York, Boston, and Chicago in the United States, and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and based in Côte d’Ivoire, Muluneh’s practice focuses on her cultural heritage as a way to explore themes of history, politics, sense of place, and other pressing issues such as the climate crisis. For this new series, Muluneh drew inspiration from Ethiopian poet Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin’s “This is where I am.” Written in 1974—the year of both Muluneh’s birth and the start of the Ethiopian Revolution—the poem and body of photographs it inspired are decidedly personal. The series bridges past and present, as Muluneh examines her experiences as an immigrant and refugee, reflects upon the various political regimes she has lived through, and borrows elements from religious iconography. In addition to being Muluneh’s first public art exhibition in Côte d’Ivoire, Aïda Muluneh: This is where I am will mark the first time that Public Art Fund presents artwork on the African continent, simultaneously expanding the organization’s partnership with JCDecaux beyond the United States to reach new audiences.

Aïda Muluneh: This is where I am is curated by Public Art Fund Adjunct Curator Katerina Stathopoulou.

Nicholas Galanin: In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra

Opening May 16

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Empire Fulton Ferry Lawn

Based in Sitka, Alaska, Nicholas Galanin centers Indigeneity as fundamental to questioning border walls built to restrict access impacting all living things. In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra, is a monumental 30-foot tall corten steel sculpture, created using the same material and scale as the current US/Mexico border wall. Galanin’s sculpture focuses on Land as the foundation and source of Indigenous practices of mutual sustainability. Through the work’s form Galanin references the use of bold text in Pop art. At the same time, rather than celebrating mass media, he implicates it in the marketing of nationalism. Galanin’s work invites viewers to reflect on the consequences of enforced exclusion that divides peoples and Land for extractive purposes. In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra speaks to a reduction, and enforced limitation, on relationships with Land across generations, cultures, and communities.

Nicholas Galanin: In every language there is Land / En cada idioma hay Tierra is curated by Public Art Fund Artistic & Executive Director Nicholas Baume with support from Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand.

Phyllida Barlow: PRANK

Opening June 7

City Hall Park, Lower Manhattan

British artist Phyllida Barlow will bring PRANK, a series of seven new steel and fiberglass sculptures, to City Hall Park. Best known for her imposing installations that are simultaneously commanding and whimsical, Barlow typically uses inexpensive, low-grade materials such as cardboard, fabric, plywood, and cement to make anti-monumental sculptures. A revisitation of the artist’s 1990s Object For series, a body of work developed in Barlow’s home which combined disparate elements to create surprising new synergies, PRANK marks Barlow’s first significant body of outdoor sculpture composed of robust, long-lasting materials. PRANK’s invented forms will stretch the limits of mass, volume and height as they block, straddle or balance with precarity. The artist will present everyday structures and furniture–workbenches piled up at odd angles, cabinets accumulated with doors akimbo, a stack of chairs forming an endless column. Surmounting each structure will be a pair of “rabbit ears,” a form that Barlow first presented as an oversized plaster object on a television set in 1994. Fabricated in both steel and fiberglass, this new body of work marks a major departure for Barlow, whose entire oeuvre until now has been made with materials suited to indoor or temporary display.

Phyllida Barlow: PRANK is curated by Public Art Fund Artistic & Executive Director Nicholas Baume with initial development by former Public Art Fund Curator Daniel S. Palmer.

Felipe Baeza: Unruly Forms

Opening August 9

JCDecaux Bus Shelters Across New York City, Boston, & Chicago

With a background in printmaking and collage, Brooklyn-based artist Felipe Baeza has earned wide attention for sensually rich and visually arresting works that evoke both mythic dimensions and contemporary themes. Marrying elements of sculpture, collage, embroidery, and painting, Baeza’s materially and conceptually layered work incorporates photographic images, pigmented paper, and depictions of fragmented bodies, all woven together into iconic compositions. As the child of Mexican immigrants, Baeza has long been invested in exploring the body in flux in his practice, examining how one thrives and flourishes from prescribed circumstances and challenges. For his new series for JCDecaux bus shelters, Unruly Forms, Baeza will present a series of paintings based on his research with Mesoamerican artifacts in museum collections across New York City, Chicago, and Boston, reflecting on ways that these objects’ removal and displacement has interrupted their original function, power, and context.

Felipe Baeza: Unruly Forms is curated by Public Art Fund Artistic & Executive Director Nicholas Baume with support from Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand.

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ABOUT PUBLIC ART FUND

As the leader in its field, Public Art Fund brings dynamic contemporary art to a broad audience in New York City and beyond by mounting ambitious free exhibitions of international scope and impact that offer the public powerful experiences with art and the urban environment.

SUPPORT

Public Art Fund is supported by the generosity of individuals, corporations, and private foundations including major support from Abrams Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, The Fuhrman Family Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation, Hartfield Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation- Affirmation Arts Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Red Crane Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, and Wagner Foundation.

Public Art Fund exhibitions and programs are also supported in part with public funds from government agencies, including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Specials thanks to Brooklyn Bridge Park, JCDecaux, and NYC Parks.