Today, the Art Students League of New York and the Parks Department are teaming up to unveil eight giant sculptures in Riverside Park, along 59th to 72nd Sts. The project is called "Model to Monument," and a group of sculptors have been working on an intensive nine-month program to create the figures, which range from abstract figures of New York's past to a life-size bronze girl and her dog looking out on the Hudson. Riverside Park "provides the ideal platform to show these powerful examples of public art," said ASL Executive Director Ira Goldberg in a statement. Here's a look at some of the sculptures, which will be up for a year, and how they came to be. more ›

Artist and M.I.T. grad Jim Campbell has a new installation—Scattered Light—that was just unveiled at Madison Square Park, and which features many, many light bulbs. One part of the installation is comprised of 2,000 LEDs spanning 80-feet and displaying flickering human silhouettes when seen from a certain vantage point, according to NYCLovesNYC. more ›

Creative Time always has some pretty cool stuff going on, their latest is Paul Ramirez Jonas's Key to the City, a citywide public art project that allows everyone to explore open spaces in all five boroughs (which was kicked off today by Mayor Bloomberg himself, and will run through June 27th). The CT team tells us, "The key eloquently connects the disparate sites to create a kind of poem of place, and asks how public is the public space of the city?" more ›

Last year we saw some birdhouses go up in Red Hook as part of a Department of Transportation public art project, and now more will soon be brought to the borough of Brooklyn. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg is defending the "Event Horizon" public art project that has recently led to unnecessary 911 calls. The outdoor installation features cast iron statues of human figures, bolted to the ledges of buildings—like the Empire State Building, where just last month a man jumped to his death. more ›

Remember when the Madison Square Park Conservancy was all: these statues of life-size men bolted to ledges of tall buildings in midtown won't cause panic amongst the masses below? Well the public art installation is proving to do just that. more ›

That Antony Gormley public art installation, that will most definitely up the 911 call count, is now being installed on rooftops around the city. All in all 31 statues of bodies will be placed on top of buildings near Madison Square Park, including the Flatiron and the Empire State Building. There will also be a few placed on the ground, but the ones that look like jumpers have authorities a little concerned. more ›

The tops of 500 New York City taxis are about to become an art exhibit on wheels. Throughout January, the Las Vegas-based company that owns about half of the city's taxi-top ads will install 14- by 48-inch artworks by Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz, and Yoko Ono above cabs, the Times reports. more ›

The latest public art project to glean some attention can fit right in your pocket... but it's gonna cost ya. The NY Times reports that seven million MetroCards were distributed starting in September, all containing the word "optimism" on the back. The MTA, perhaps seeing it as a way to brainwash unhappy customers, oversaw the project. more ›

Wife of Christo, and artist herself, Jeanne-Claude has died at age 74. She co-created the 2005 "Gates" installation, that spanned 23 miles in Central Park, alongside her husband (the installation brought $254 million to the local economy here). Mayor Bloomberg spoke with Christo this morning to offer condolences on the behalf of the city, where Jeanne-Claude died last night of a brain aneurysm. more ›

Last week the Public Art Fund’s new exhibition at City Hall Park (Peter Coffin’s Untitled Sculpture Silhouettes), was unveiled. Currently you'll be able to find 13 monumental silhouettes of iconic artworks around the park (and miniature versions inside City Hall's lobby), including variations on Rodin’s The Thinker, Picasso’s She Goat, Michelangelo’s David, and one of Sol LeWitt’s Incomplete Open Cubes. more ›

The first FAILE wheel has been found! Someone posted a photo (more here) on the Brooklyn collective's message board stating they found it in a dumpster. Of course, this was followed up by asking the other posters how much it is worth and mentioning it may be landing on eBay soon. The thief seems to give himself away a few times, changing his story around and mentioning he would gladly issue a public apology if FAILE contacted him. Because, you know, people apologize for finding stuff all the time. more ›

Public art is everywhere these days, and Dylan Mortimer’s work may be the most provocative piece in the city at the moment. The NY Post reports that his prayer booths are located by the Roosevelt Island tram in Manhattan, and are meant to "get people talking." The Parks Dept. describes the interactive Public Prayer Booth as a synthesis of a telephone booth and a prayer station, where "the viewer can flip down a kneeler and engage in prayer." The artist, who is from Kansas City and a graduate of SVA, says, “My goal is to spark dialogue about a topic often avoided, and often treated cynically by the contemporary art world." more ›

Cooper Union has taken down the giant Stalin banner that went up this week following pressure from the Dept. of Buildings, which had received complaints. The banner was part of Lene Berg's installation, “Stalin by Picasso, or Portrait of Woman with Mustache.” The school recognized that it may be particularly sensitive circumstances to have it up--with a large nearby Ukranin community keenly aware that it is the 75th anniversary of a famine imposed by Stalin that killed millions of Ukrainians. Jaroslaw Leshko, the president of the board of trustees at the Ukrainian Museum, did not want to kibosh the installation and suggested it be put up somewhere indoors. But Berg was more than unhappy with the move, saying, “In a sense, I think it’s self-censorship...They ruined my show, my work.” more ›

Starting next week artist Tadashi Kawamata will make the above rendering a reality in Madison Square Park. His "tree huts" represent his "interest in the architecture of shelter and of the insertion of private objects into public spaces as a method of renegotiating the meaning of both." But how long do you think it will take until someone tries to climb into or inhabit one? Stay tuned for more images as the huts are built next week. [via NY Times] more ›

Ever wonder what Andy Rooney has to say about all the public art displayed in the city? Well, here he is mouthing off on what he calls "pretentious nonsense," amongst other things. more ›

Olafur Eliasson's hyper-anticipated Waterfalls began flowing this morning at 7am, under a dreary, overcast sky. They'll be from 7am to 10pm every day until October 13th, except on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when they'll be turned on at 9am. For a list of good viewing spots, click here. more ›

Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls start flowing tomorrow morning-- perhaps as early as 7am, but sadly, the Circle Line tours of the bay don't start until Friday. So if you want a good view (or a good picture) of these babies, you're going to have to view them from land. No problem: we've marked the best viewing spots for each one on the map above. more ›

The New York Times has fever also, featuring an image of the public art project that is set to flow starting tomorrow by 9 a.m. First announced in January, the project, conceived by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, involves four man-made waterfalls along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, in Lower Manhattan at Pier 35, and on the north shore of Governors Island. more ›

While a Tom Otterness sculpture can really brighten up the dark underground of New York, for his latest installation he's shedding some sunlight on his work. The above was just installed in DUMBO near the pedestrian exit to the Brooklyn Bridge. more ›

Details have emerged on the ambitious, $15 million East River waterfalls project coming to New York in mid-July to cap off the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at MoMa. The project will consist of four man-made waterfalls, ranging 90 to 120-foot tall, installed temporarily at four sites along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, in Lower Manhattan at Pier 35, and on the north shore of Governors Island. The waterworks will flow from 7am to 10pm seven days a week, will be lit after sunset, and operate from July to October. more ›

Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson will work with the Public Art Fund – a nonprofit that brought Anish Kapoor's "Sky Mirror" and Jeff Koons's "Puppy," to Rockefeller Center – to bring freestanding waterfalls to the East River this spring. The project will be officially announced tomorrow, but a source tells the Sun that the waterfalls will rise 60 to 70 feet above the water, which is more than half as high as the Brooklyn Bridge roadway. The spectacle will be visible from the area around the Seaport and Brooklyn Heights. more ›

This past weekend, an aluminum tree sculpture, dubbed A Tree for Anable Basin, built upon a floating island, set sail off Hunters Point. The project by Chico MacMurtrie and Amoprhic Robot Works was conceived to investigate and celebrate "the enigmatic, rapidly changing waterfront environment of Long Island City." It also acts as a "condominium for birds"; the press release reads:

It is designed to emote the displacement of nature, specifically of migratory water birds by industrial activity and urban development. more ›

more ›

Hey Gothamist - Do you guys know what's up with the yellow cabs that have flowers painted on their hoods? more ›