Josiah McElheny: Prismatic Park
Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, NY
June 13, 2017 – October 8, 2017
Production | Installation Grant
Madison Square Park Conservancy commissioned internationally acclaimed artist Josiah McElheny to create Prismatic Park for Mad. Sq. Art, their program of commissioned sculpture. Curated by Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Prismatic Park was an outdoor exhibition comprised of three architectural sculptures made of painted wood and prismatic glass: a ten-foot-tall curvilinear blue sound wall, a thirteen-foot-tall red and yellow canopy for literature readings, and a thirty-two-foot wide green ovoid dance floor. Situated on the Park’s central Oval Lawn, these structures served as stages for three New York-based creative arts organizations: Blank Forms, Danspace Project and Poets House, who provided free rehearsals, workshops, and performances to the public including poetry, music, and dance.
McElheny’s glass structures are founded on a utopian ideal of architecture that generates and inspires public engagement. Prismatic Park served both as an artistic structure and and as a platform for exchange between artists and the greater community. Each resident organization presented six weeks of programming, addressing three themes: teaching, rehearsal and performance.
For more information, visit Madison Square Park Conservancy.
Josiah McElheny, Prismatic Park, 2017. Wood, steel, and prismatic glass, 9.5 x 31 x .33 feet (wall); 32 feet diameter (floor); 14 x 11 x 9 feet (pavilion). Collection of the artist. ©Josiah McElheny. Photo: Rashmi Gill
Josiah McElheny, Prismatic Park, 2017. Wood, steel, and prismatic glass, 9.5 x 31 x .33 feet (wall); 32 feet diameter (floor); 14 x 11 x 9 feet (pavilion). Collection of the artist. ©Josiah McElheny. Photo: Rashmi Gill
Josiah McElheny, Prismatic Park, 2017. Wood, steel, and prismatic glass, 9.5 x 31 x .33 feet (wall); 32 feet diameter (floor); 14 x 11 x 9 feet (pavilion). Collection of the artist. ©Josiah McElheny. Photo: Rashmi Gill
Josiah McElheny, Fabrication of Prismatic Park, 2017. Wood, steel, and prismatic glass, 9.5 x 31 x .33 feet (wall); 32 feet diameter (floor); 14 x 11 x 9 feet (pavilion). Collection of the artist. ©Josiah McElheny. Photo: Yasunori Matsui
