Art Out of Doors

NEW YORK—As the official first day of summer approaches, none of us wants to be stuck indoors, even to look at art. Fortunately, this summer you can get out and about in New York and enjoy some top-quality work at the same time. Our top picks are listed below, but beyond these there's also Richard Deacon in Madison Square Park, Jeff Koons on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Everyday Eden” at the MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, Tom Otterness in DUMBO, and a lot more. So get into your shorts and flip-flops, slather on some SPF 50, and follow this ARTINFO guide to New York’s best summer outdoor art.

1. Chris Burden: What My Dad Gave Me at Rockefeller Center, through July 19

No doubt the tourist's favorite of early summer will be this ideally located 65-foot-high skyscraper, weighing in at eight tons and comprising a million or so Erector set piece facsimiles. Believe it or not, when a sculpture gets this big, it’s subject to the same regulations as real buildings of comparable size. Back in California, where it was constructed, Burden’s components had to be wind-tunnel tested. Ever one to push the envelope, Burden reckoned he could have built it twice as high and it still would have been stable, but 65 feet was the limit for bringing it cross-country on the back of a truck.

2. Tom Sachs: "Bronze Collection" at Lever House, through September 6

Just a few blocks east and north of the Burden skyscraper you’ll find Tom Sachs’s wonderful collection of bronze sculptures at Lever House. Strictly speaking, these are on display both indoors and out, but even the ones inside can be seen through the lobby’s expanses of 1950s plate glass. And the highlights, in any case, are outdoors: the giant Hello Kitty and her smaller little sister that cries a fountain. Apparently the folks who own Hello Kitty are contemplating legal action, but I’d invite them to read Sachs’s comments in our recent interview before doing anything rash.

3. James Yamada: Our Starry Night at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, through October 28

Far smaller and less attention-grabbing than Burden and Sachs’s giants, but a treat anyway, is Brooklyn-based Yamada’s take on fairground sideshows — and airport security scanners. Walk through the sculpture’s doorway, and it responds by firing up a bespoke light show. It would be nice to think that it is displaying your spiritual aura, but apparently the electronics respond to how much metal you’re carrying. It’s probably best to visit at twilight, and because you can’t see your own display — it only works while you’re in the sculpture — it's more fun if you take a friend.

4. Olafur Eliasson: The New York City Waterfalls at Pier 35, the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Brooklyn Piers 4 and 5, and Governors Island, June 26 through October 13

These will be the works that get most attention this summer, and with his two-venue show at MoMA and P.S.1 also on through June 30, Eliasson’s standing could hardly be higher in New York just now. I only hope the waterfalls are as stunning as we’re being told they will be; the folks at the Mayor’s office have hinted heavily that they regard them as the follow-up to The Gates, and that’s a tough act to follow.

5. Henry Moore: "Moore in America" at the New York Botanical Garden, through November 2, $20 admission

The Botanical Garden may be only a short train ride away from all of my other picks, but Henry Moore occupies a different artistic universe than anyone I’ve listed so far. Regarded by many of my English compatriots as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Moore preferred precisely this sort of landscaped setting for his elephantine biomorphs. The Botanical Garden has rounded up something like 20 of them for what it’s calling “the largest outdoor exhibition of Henry Moore's sculpture ever presented in a single venue in the United States.” Plus, being up there in the Bronx, you’ll probably find that this is the coolest of the picks, in a climatic sense, at least.

Click on the photo gallery at left to see images of each of the installations.