New Monuments for New Cities Art Project Arrives at Buffalo Bayou Partnership

New Monuments for New Cities:  A Buffalo Bayou Partnership and High Line Network Public Art Project

Buffalo Bayou is one of five North American sites to host

[A] part by Sin Huelllas Artists: Delilah Montoya and Jimmy Castillo

Houston’s Buffalo Bayou has been selected as the inaugural site for New Monuments for New Cities, a collaborative public art project organized by the High Line Network, a coalition of visionary North American industrial reuse projects that are transforming underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes and redefining what parks can be.

What is New Monuments for New Cities?

Debuting in Houston on February 20, the public art initiative’s theme is meant to stimulate discussion and community discourse on the evolving nature of monuments and ask questions such as “What does it mean to monumentalize a person, an idea or moment in time?”

In coordination with High Line Art, each High Line Network participant invited five of its city’s artists or artist groups to create proposals in the form of posters for new monuments.  The resulting proposals span from traditional monuments, to revised historical statues, to newly imagined methods of public commemoration.  There are drawings, photographs, renderings, Wikipedia pages, collages, and bold text-based statements.

Where in Houston can you see this?

In Houston, the artwork will be displayed in the form of light boxes integrated into benches beckoning visitors to reflect and enter the discourse on the meaning of monuments.  The structures will surround the cherished Spindle by Henry Moore in Buffalo Bayou Park’s Fondren Foundation Meadow along Allen Parkway at Gillette Street.

“We are honored to be among a select group of cities that are exhibiting these thought-provoking artworks,” says Judy Nyquist, BBP Board Member and Public Art Committee Co-chair.  “The theme, New Monuments for New Cities, is so timely as our nation and its citizens are rethinking what form monuments should take today.”

Participating artists

Participating Houston artists are:  Regina Agu, Jamal Cyrus, Sin Huellas: Delilah Montoya and Jimmy Castillo, Phillip Pyle, II, and Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin.  Artists selected by the other High Line Network participants include:

Austin:  Nicole Awai, Daniela Cavazos Madrigal, Teruko Nimura and Rachel Alex Crist, Denise Prince, Vincent Valdez

Chicago:  Eric J. García, Tonika Johnson, Chris Pappan, Richard Santiago (TIAGO), Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff

Toronto:  Susan Blight, Coco Guzman, Life of a Craphead (Amy Lam and Jon McCurley), An Te Liu, Quentin VerCetty

New York:  Judith Bernstein, Guerrilla Girls, Hans Haacke, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Xaviera Simmons

Special events:

In addition to the New Monuments for New Cities exhibition, Buffalo Bayou Partnership is sponsoring the following complementary programming and events:

Saturday, March 2, 1-2 p.m.: Monuments Monologue: Artists Talks at Buffalo Bayou Park at Fondren Foundation Meadow

Message and Meaning: Reconsidering Monuments Today, March 20 @ 6:30-8:30 p.m.; Panel Discussion with New Monuments for New Cities Artists and Melanie Kress, Associate Curator, High Line Art.  Moderated by Karen Farber, Director, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, University of Houston at Project Row Houses at 2521 Holman St. 

Message and Meaning: Reconsidering Monuments Today: Panel Discussion with New Monuments for New Cities Artists, with Melanie Kress, Associate Curator, High Line Art and Moderator, Karen Farber, Executive Director, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts University of Houston at Eldorado Ballroom on 2310 Elgin Street on April 6, 10-11 a.m.

Monuments Monologue: Artists Talks: Buffalo Bayou Park Fondren Foundation Meadow at Allen Parkway at Gillette Street on Saturday, April 27, 8-10 p.m.

A Monumental Evening: Closing Party: Buffalo Bayou Partnership Silos along Buffalo Bayou’s East Sector on 801 N. Nagle Street, off of Navigation.

New Monuments for New Cities Schedule in Other Cities

Waller Creek, Austin                                                       March-May 2019

The 606, Chicago                                                           May-June 2019

The Bentway, Toronto                                                     May-August 2019

The High Line, New York                                                September-October 2019

For more information

Go to https://buffalobayou.org/.