Sert Council: Observations on Public Art: An Evening with Josiah McElheny and Brooke Kamin Rapaport

Members of the Josep Lluís Sert Council are invited to an evening in James Cohan’s new Tribeca gallery. Together with the Harvard Art Museum Fellows, guests will hear from Josiah McElheny about the gallery’s opening exhibition, Observations at Night, and from Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Deputy Director and Martin Friedman Chief Curator of Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Observations at Night features new paintings and sculptures by celebrated artist Josiah McElheny, best known for his work that investigates the history of ideas that often combine glass with other materials in exciting assemblage and installations. In this exhibition, McElheny explores the poetics of the night sky and the nature of looking and listening through and beyond darkness. Central to the exhibition are visually dynamic works combining complex hand-formed glass elements with steel, paint, mirrors and electric lighting, inspired by what we see in the dark that we cannot see in the light.

Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Deputy Director and Martin Friedman Chief Curator at Madison Square Park Conservancy, is responsible for the outdoor, public sculpture program of commissioned work by contemporary artists, including projects by Tony Cragg, Leonardo Drew, Teresita Fernandéz, Josiah McElheny, Martin Puryear, and Arlene Shechet. She is the founder of Public Art Consortium, a national initiative of museum, public art and sculpture park colleagues launched in 2017, and is also the Commissioner and Curator of the United States Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale with the exhibition Martin Puryear: Liberty / Libertà.

Hosted by Bil Ehrlich BArch ’67, guests are invited to explore the gallery and exhibition, discuss public art in Manhattan, and enjoy beverages and bites.

If you are interested in the Josep Lluís Sert Council, please contact Courtney Ward [email protected].

Image: © Josiah McElheny 2019. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Mark Shortliffe.