Jackson Arn The New Yorker’s art critic Outside of “immersive experience,” I think the two saddest words in my industry are “public art.” You’ve heard the old joke that love is giving something you don’t have to someone who doesn’t want it? That’s how I feel about ninety per cent of the sculptures, murals, performance pieces, giant hot dogs, and other whatsits committeed into existence for my supposed enjoyment. But summer is here, and even bureaucrats get beauty right from time to time—see, for proof, these three temporary public art works.
I didn’t know I wanted them, but I think I’ll miss them when they’re gone. Pick Three 1. The sculptures of Huma Bhabha are dirty snowballs that pick up bits of art and cinema and history as her career rolls along.
“Before the End,” a foursome of dark bronze slabs currently in Brooklyn Bridge Park (through March 9, 2025, courtesy of the Public Art Fund), owes its title to the thirteenth-century friar Vincent of Beauvais; the installation also reminds me (and I’m not the only one) of the H. R. Giger sets from “Alien.
” Each sculpture looks like a time-chewed sarcophagus, covered with carvings that hint at a corpse trapped inside. An odd choice, you might think, for a beautiful summer lawn. But spend a little time with Bhabha’s work and it starts to seem like an inevitable piece of the landscape—the lawn is the real intruder.
2. Should you want something lighter, make your way to Socrates Sculpture Park.
