Art Works: An Inside Look at Creating, Curating, and Conserving Public Art

Art is all around us in New York City—not just in the city's wealth of museums, parks, and plazas but throughout the transit system and public space and buildings. A arts-design">span> can take you past works by contemporary luminaries like Roy Liechtenstein, Sol LeWitt, and Alex Katz; works by Keith Haring, Helen Frankenthaler, and Andy Warhol decorate ;">span>; murals by Philip Guston and Costantino Nivola appear alongside paintings by young artists who reside in the peRIGtZIUHb">span> they adorn. Art makes our public spaces more beautiful and joyful and has been proven to improve health outcomes, reduce stress, and provide an important avenue of connection between institutions and the diverse communities they serve.

Open House New York invites you to an illustrated talk with Sandra Bloodworth, Director of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design, Larissa W. Trinder, Assistant Vice President for Arts in Medicine at New York City Health + Hospitals, Alex Zablocki, Executive Director for the Public Housing Community Fund about curating, commissioning, and caring for the city’s largest municipal art collections. The talk is moderated by Daphne Lundi and begins with opening remarks by Tracey Knuckles of Bloomberg Associates. 

Attendees will receive a copy of the book ">span> (2022), documenting NYC Health + Hospitals' Community Mural Project and including essays and archival photos showcasing the history of hospital murals in New York. All proceeds from the event will go to the Public Housing Community Fund.

This program is produced in partnership with bEA0d0ILOIb,">span>, the free arts and culture app. Download Bloomberg Connects to access free guides to the art collections of MTA Arts & Design, NYC Health + Hospitals, and the Public Housing Community Fund, as well as numerous sites in NYC and around the world.

AIA CES credit is pending for this program.

Accessibility: SVA Theatre is committed to accessibility for all patrons. The venue is ADA compliant and provides listening devices for the hearing impaired.

Speakers

Sandra Bloodworth is Director of Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Arts & Design, in New York, the award-winning public art program that has transformed New York’s century-old transportation network into a first-rate museum. Bloodworth joined the MTA in 1988 and became director in 1996. Over three decades, Bloodworth has shepherded works of art installed in subway and rail stations including those by Nick Cave, Elizabeth Murray, Yoko Ono, Jacob Lawrence, Kiki Smith, Yayoi Kusama, Ann Hamilton, Firelei Baez, Vik Munoz and Alex Katz. Under her leadership, MTA Arts & Design has gained increasing renown as a leader in art in the field of public transportation by creating a collection of nearly 400 public artworks that are beloved by millions. Bloodworth is co-author of the recently released book, Contemporary Art Underground, which features the hundred mosaic, glass and metal artworks installed from 2015 through 2023.

Larissa W. Trinder, Assistant Vice President for Arts in Medicine at New York City Health + Hospitals, oversees the stewardship, exhibition strategy, conservation, acquisition and curation of the health system’s collection of more than 7,400 works of art, the largest non-museum collection in New York City, and with many dating back to the 1930s. The visual collection is installed throughout the health system to support evidence-based design principles and enhance patient and staff experiences.

Alex Zablocki, Executive Director for the Public Housing Community Fund, is a veteran public servant with over two decades of experience working with nonprofit organizations and government agencies at all levels. In his role at the Fund, Alex leads a team supporting over a half million NYCHA residents, raising funds to launch, support, and scale high-impact programs for public housing residents. Prior to joining the Fund, Alex served for five years as Executive Director of the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy and previously served as Senior Program Manager at the New York State Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery and as Director of Community Relations for the New York City Department of Homeless Services and has held various roles with the New York State Senate and New York City Council.

Tracey Knuckles of Bloomberg Associates, helps cities develop strategies for strengthening the creative sector, and optimizing its impact through economic development, cultural marketing and tourism initiatives, and other key civic projects. Prior to joining Bloomberg Associates, she served as Deputy Commissioner & General Counsel for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), the nation’s largest funder of the arts. At DCLA, Tracey managed the agency’s core operations and guided the agency through a host of strategic reforms and programmatic initiatives.

Daphne Lundi (moderator) is a Brooklyn-born and based urban planner, climate policymaker, writer, and artist. She is currently a Public Scholar at The Moynihan Center at The City College of New York, where her research and writing explores the intersections between science fiction and city planning. Previously, she was the Deputy Director for Living Streets & Public Spaces at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, where she led a team focused on developing policy initiatives for transportation resiliency and sustainability, waste management policy, green infrastructure planning, air quality, open space access, and extreme heat mitigation.

Image credits: Clockwise from top: ROAMING UNDERFOOT (2018) © Nancy Blum, NYCT 28 St. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, photo: Cathy M. Carver; Keith Haring, Untitled, 1986. At NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull, photo: Nicholas Knight; Fermin Mendoza, Alphabet City, 2019. Mural in the five-part Roots/Raíce series at NYCHA Lillian Wald Houses, Lower East Side, photo: Public Housing Community Fund.