NYC: Public Art, Alison Saar Sculptures
New York City is a mecca for the arts. Public art is everywhere in the Big Apple, and it’s ever-changing. The city continuously unveils new installations, with some becoming permanent. Alison Saar is a talented sculptor as well as a mixed media artist. She has exhibited her work across the globe. The artist has a permanent sculpture in Harlem.
NYC Alison Saar Sculptures
Saar’s Feallan and Fallow was one of my favorite installations at Madison Square Park located in the Flat Iron District (runs from Madison Square Park to 18th street) back in 2011. A six-piece installation was scattered throughout the park, four of the works depict the seasons. Two of the artist’s Tree souls (fourteen-foot-tall figures with legs of roots) created in 1994 to round out the series. Inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone, Saar’s Feallan and Fallow features the four seasons. You can still read about this past exhibition HERE or on the website https://www.madisonsquarepark.org
Harriet Tubman by Alison Saar
Located in Harlem, The legendary Underground Railroad hero, Harriet Tubman (c.1822-1913) is a larger-than-life sculpture. You can find this stunning bronze sculpture by Saar at St. Nicholas Avenue, West 122nd Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. L.A. Louver. represents Alison Saar CLICK HERE to read a Q & A with L.A. Louver’s Founding Director Peter Goulds.
The artist has depicted Tubman “not as the conductor of the Underground Railroad but as the train itself, an unstoppable locomotive,” the roots of slavery pulled up in her wake. Saar designed stylized portraits of “anonymous passengers” of the Underground Railroad in Tubman’s skirt. Some were inspired by West African “passport masks.” Around the granite base of the monument are bronze tiles alternately depicting events in Tubman’s life and traditional quilting patterns.
The $2.8 million multi-agency project included the landscaping of a formerly barren traffic triangle. Furthermore, it was sponsored by former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields. Designed by Quennell Rothschild and constructed by URS, the renovated triangle features paving blocks and roughly hewn granite to create a natural setting. Plantings native to both New York and Tubman’s home state of Maryland represent the woods and terrain traveled by Tubman and her Underground Railroad passengers, providing a contemplative space in which to consider Tubman’s legacy, For additional information on this sculpture, CLICK HERE or visit this website – https://www.nycgovparks.org
