Socrates Sculpture Park to Sprout New Installations
Vick Quezada, Juan Deere (2024). Performance view: Socrates Sculpture Park, New York City (2024). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Bob Krasner.
Nine artists will present new site-specific works at New York‘s Socrates Sculpture Park from 14 September 2024 to 6 April 2025.
Works by Kimberly Chou Tsun An, jill cohen-nuñez, Utsa Hazarika, Landon Newton, Mamoun Nukumanu, Juan-Manuel Pinzon, Vick Quezada, Petra Szilagyi, and Nala C. Turner will be shown in the upcoming exhibition, Socrates Annual 2024, which responds to the theme ‘Invasive Species’.
The title references the USDA’s Invasive Species Profiles list, denoting non-native organisms that could endanger the habitat they enter.
Artists were invited to make ‘living installations’ using both native and non-native plant species from the site, which will evolve alongside their environment over the seasons.
‘We challenge conventional ideas of what is possible by creating opportunities to interrogate our relationship to nature,’ said Katie Dixon, Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park.
American sculptor Mark di Suvero created Socrates Sculpture Park on an abandoned landfill at the north end of Long Island in 1986.
The four-acre waterfront site, overlooking Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was landscaped by artists and local youths to become the largest outdoor exhibition space in New York.
Melvin Edwards, Richard Mock, and Vito Acconci were among the first group of artists to exhibit large-scale works at the site. Over 1,200 artists have since installed work on park grounds, including Jeffrey Gibson, Nari Ward, and Guadalupe Maravilla.
Budding artists are supported by the Socrates Annual Fellowship, an open-call commission that includes a U.S. $8,000 production grant, a $2,000 honorarium, and access to studio space on-site.
The half-a-million dollar project was funded by donations from local businesses and di Suvero’s non-profit, Athena Foundation, which has provided artist grants and studio space since 1977. —[O]
Main image: Vick Quezada, Juan Deere (2024). Performance view: Socrates Sculpture Park, New York City (2024). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Bob Krasner.
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