“Peace Gorilla” by Noa Bornstein

Noa Bornstein’s “Peace Gorilla,” a bronze gorilla sculpture, greets and high-fives park goers along the esplanade of Newtown Barge Park in Greenpoint. Peace’s arm extends toward the United Nations building across the East River, while she stands on a concrete base inscribed with the word for ‘friend’ in 90 languages—beginning with the six official languages of the UN. Bornstein’s work promotes peace between humans, with visitors welcomed and encouraged to touch, high-five, and engage with the sculpture. “Peace Gorilla” is an edition of seven, with the artist imagining one on each continent. Interestingly, Peace is not the only bronze gorilla sculpture to ever grace New York City–in 2020, “King Nyani” was on view in Hudson Yards, a sculpture which was an homage to critically endangered mountain gorillas in the wild and the largest bronze gorilla statue in the world. Surely Peace and King Nyani would make great friends. Ms. Bornstein says that Peace Gorilla “continues to invite us to make friends and peace with each other, and with hers and other species.” 

"Canstruction" 2022

As Thanksgiving approaches, organizations and individuals are joining efforts to ensure everyone has a meal this holiday. Celebrating its 30th year, “Canstruction” returns to New York City’s Brookfield Place to host its annual competition between local architects, contractors, and engineers to create extravagant displays, using only canned non-perishables. The canned foods are later donated to City Harvest, New York’s first and largest food rescue organization, which has been delivering nutritious food to hundreds of food pantries and community food programs across our five boroughs for the last forty years.

This year, twenty brilliant teams came together to compete and challenge themselves to create unforgettable “Canstruction” sculptures. From Baby Yoda ensuring “May the Food be with You” to “WaCANda Forever” and King Tut’s “A Meal Fit for a King”, this year’s canstructors have created fantastic pieces. While the companies are also competing for awards from a panel of jurors and people’s choice, the main goal is to help stop hunger, and ensure that everyone has access to a holiday meal to share with their families. Canstruction is open to the public until November 14th. If you “CAN”, remember to donate at your local food bank or neighborhood food drive!

“Black Atlantic”: Co-curated by Daniel Palmer and Hugh Hayden

Standing along the shore of the East River in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the location of a former shipping port, is a site-responsive group exhibition by artists Leilah Babirye, Hugh Hayden, Dozie Kanu, Tau Lewis, and Kiyan Williams, titled “Black Atlantic.” The exhibition is inspired by “the diaspora across the ocean that connects Africa with the Americas and Europe.” Over time, these transatlantic networks have led to blends, hybrids, and clashes of cultures and identities, and each commission suggests a unique and creative approach in the pursuit of crafting seen, valued, and sustainable Black identities and futures.

Kiyan Williams, artist behind one work titled Ruins of Empire, reimagines an iconic symbol of American values, The Statue of Freedom. The 1863 monument, designed by Thomas Crawford and still standing atop the U.S. Capitol Building, was built entirely using the labor of enslaved people. Williams’ iteration of the work appears in a state of decomposition, “embodying how American ideals of freedom are tied to subjugation, drawing inspiration from sci-fi tropes of a destroyed monument like the Statue of Liberty as a symbol for a world ruined by environmental devastation.” Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, these pieces, wide-ranging both materially and conceptually, aim to create an open exchange of ideas between artists of the same generation that propose an “open, multifaceted, and heterogeneous idea of identity in the United States today.”