inHarlem: A Look at Public Art in Harlem Then and Now
Maren Hassinger: Monuments
June 16, 2018–June 10, 2019
Marcus Garvey Park
Here, Maren Hassinger used branches to create forms that responded to aspects of the park’s landscape. The artist created the work with volunteers from the Studio Museum’s Teen Leadership Council and Expanding the Walls program—so Monuments was a project made in Harlem and for Harlem.
Maren Hassinger: Monuments
June 16, 2018–June 10, 2019
Marcus Garvey Park
Here, Maren Hassinger used branches to create forms that responded to aspects of the park’s landscape. The artist created the work with volunteers from the Studio Museum’s Teen Leadership Council and Expanding the Walls program—so Monuments was a project made in Harlem and for Harlem.
Our inHarlem series began in 2016 and has featured public art by artists Chloë Bass, Kevin Beasley, Maren Hassinger, Kori Newkirk, Thomas J Price, and Rudy Shepherd. In partnership with civic and cultural organizations in the neighborhood, inHarlem allowed us to continue our programming in Harlem and beyond.
inHarlem 2016–17
inHarlem: Simone Leigh
August 25, 2016–July 25, 2017
Marcus Garvey Park
This installation inserted three structures reminiscent of imba yokubikira, kitchen houses from Shona-speaking rural areas of Zimbabwe, into the landscape of Marcus Garvey Park.
inHarlem: Rudy Shepherd
August 25, 2016–July 25, 2017
Jackie Robinson Park
This inHarlem iteration, Black Rock Negative Energy Absorber, was created to dispel feelings of racial prejudice, violence, or disdain by encouraging viewers to be more compassionate.
inHarlem: Kori Newkirk
August 25, 2016–July 25, 2017
St. Nicholas Park
Kori Newkirk transformed one of the iconic sets of steps in St. Nicholas Park into the site of a ceremonial procession with Sentra, a towering installation of reflective fringe curtains and a dazzling canopy visible to passersby.
inHarlem: Kevin Beasley
August 25, 2016–July 25, 2017
Morningside Park
This inHarlem presented Who’s Afraid to Listen to Red, Black and Green?, a trio of large-scale sculptures the artist Kevin Beasley referred to as “acoustic mirrors.” Each sculpture featured one of African American flag colors, with found red, black, or green T-shirts cast in resin.
inHarlem 2017–18
Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelly, The Journey
May 3, 2017–February 23, 2018
Countee Cullen Library
These abstract collages were based on artist Derrick Adams’s extensive research into the archive of the influential African American fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954–1990), housed at the Schomburg Center.
inHarlem 2018–2019
Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire
May 1–November 24, 2018
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
In this exhibition, Báez reimagined important women of color—whose legacies are preserved and maintained by the archives of the Schomburg Center—by way of reproductions of archival photographs, notes, diaries, letters, and manuscripts.
Maren Hassinger: Monuments
June 16, 2018–June 10, 2019
Marcus Garvey Park
Here, Maren Hassinger used branches to create forms that responded to aspects of the park’s landscape. The artist created the work with volunteers from the Studio Museum’s Teen Leadership Council and Expanding the Walls program—so Monuments was a project made in Harlem and for Harlem.
Future Continuous
March 24–July 26, 2019
George Bruce Library
For Future Continuous, Kambui Olujimi presented drawings of his dreams and those of his community; against Olujimi’s dreamscape, Andre D. Wagner presented a constellation of silver gelatin prints that celebrated the quotidian—the extraordinary in the everyday.
inHarlem 2019–20
Chloë Bass: Wayfinding
September 28, 2019–September 27, 2020
St. Nicholas Park
This monumental commission of twenty-four site-specific sculptures gestured toward the structural and visual vernacular of public wayfinding signage through a combination of text and archival images.
inHarlem 2021–22
Thomas J Price: Witness
October 2, 2021–October 1, 2022
Marcus Garvey Park
Price’s nine-foot bronze figure, The Distance Within (2021), depicted a young Black man looking down at his cell phone. Price’s large-scale sculptures are inspired by real people, often those who live and work in his hometown of South London.
Public Art Walking Tour
This feature documents the many public artworks made by artists of African American descent that can be found throughout Harlem’s streets, parks, and subway platforms.
Crossing from west to east, and north and south along the central arteries of Harlem’s heart—Malcolm X Boulevard, 125th Street, and Frederick Douglass Boulevard—we celebrate Harlem by amplifying other iconic public artworks in the neighborhood. These artworks by Black artists, whose other work is in our permanent collection, transform the landscape and are meant to disrupt or enhance the landscape they inhabit—or maybe both.