New York Turns Into an Open Gallery: Public Art Installations Bloom From Governors Island to the High Line

New York this fall has become the world’s largest gallery — the city itself. The city’s public spaces, from Governors Island to the High Line, are hosting a series of monumental art installations and sculptures, according to a USA Art News roundup based on reporting by The Art Newspaper. The works touch on themes such as indigenous history, the environmental crisis and cultural heritage.

On Governors Island, Mohawk artist Alan Michelson has created “The Oyster” (2026) — a monumental oyster-shell-shaped sculpture, commissioned by the nonprofit More Art in collaboration with Billion Oyster Project and Governors Island Arts. The work recalls the indigenous oyster-shell middens of the Lenape people that once covered the island and comes as part of the “Reframing 1776: Land, Water, and the Work of Repair” initiative. When it closes on November 30, parts of the installation will return to the water to be transformed into living reefs under the city harbor.

In City Hall Park, the Public Art Fund presents Genesis Belanger’s “Heads or Tails” — sculptural birds bathing in a fountain. The High Line has several new works: a bronze fountain about 2.7 meters tall by Ximena Garrido-Lecca in the shape of a corn husk, with neon-yellow water symbolizing the toxic chemicals used in corn agriculture; Derek Fordjour’s “ARCHETYPES” series — three figures portraying Black people whose livelihoods depend on the body, a boxer, a burlesque dancer and a waiter; and a Patricia Ayres installation with three sculptures of bodies wrapped and tied with fabric, elastic and other materials.

In Madison Square Park, ceramicist Roberto Lugo has installed a giant orange fire hydrant and a 6-meter-tall urn honoring Puerto Rican history and heritage, with portraits of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reggaeton artist Bad Bunny, baseball legend Roberto Clemente and his parents.

The MoMA PS1 courtyard displays Precious Okoyomon’s “Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation” — an installation with grasses, flowers, pollinators and other plants and a giant teddy bear through which visitors can walk. A few neighborhoods away, in Queens, Chakaia Booker has installed a trio of her signature sculptures made from recycled tires in Socrates Sculpture Park, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.