Genesis Belanger Heads or Tails

City Hall Park

Opens June 2

About the Exhibition

Genesis Belanger (b. 1978, Massachusetts) transforms City Hall Park into a stage for artworks that play with commonplace park features such as planted gardens, fountains, and public statuary. Wander through the park to find a flock of birds, a wheelbarrow sprouting oversized flowers, three potted fruit trees waiting to be planted among their living counterparts, and two large bronze figures that are modern interpretations of the allegorical Lady Justice. Belanger sculpted many of the works by hand in clay before casting them in resilient materials like bronze and pigmented cement. The sculptures’ color palette ranges from luscious florals to more muted tones that mimic the park’s fountain and traditional monumental sculpture.

Belanger chose the exhibition’s title Heads or Tails to suggest a moment of anticipation – for her, reflective of a societal moment on the precipice of great change. Through these four sculptural vignettes, the artist invites viewers to reflect on questions raised in our contemporary moment, such as humanity’s connection to nature, our ability to discern real from fake, and the representation of civic values in our public spaces.

Genesis Belanger: Heads or Tails is curated by Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress.

About the Artist

Genesis Belanger View Profile

Genesis Belanger’s practice is centered on the creation of sculptural objects and tableaux that draw from, and critique, the aesthetics of capitalist production and consumption. Working in a multitude of materials and techniques, including porcelain, stoneware, metal, wood, upholstery, and painting, Belanger creates psychologically charged mise-en-scènes, creating objects that act as surrogates for human feeling or experience. Her work considers the ways in which advertising manipulates our psychology; the dynamics of consumption; issues of privacy in our increasingly online world; and coping mechanisms for the overwhelm.

Location

City Hall Park

Directions

City Hall Park

Directions

Bloomberg Philanthropies is the presenting sponsor of Genesis Belanger: Heads or Tails.

Leadership support for Genesis Belanger: Heads or Tails is provided by Pace Gallery, Perrotin, the Abrams Foundation, Elizabeth Fearon Pepperman & Richard C. Pepperman II, and Jennifer Harris, with champion support from Ellen & Andrew Celli, Alexandra & Grant Frankel, Jennifer & Jason New, Jessica Ogilvie, Karen & Sam Seymour, and Allison Wiener & Jeffrey Schackner; and major support from Diana Bowes.

Genesis Belanger: Heads or Tails is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Special thanks to NYC Parks and engineering partner TYLin.

Public Art Fund is supported by the generosity of individuals, corporations, and private foundations including lead support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with major support from the Abrams Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the Ford Foundation, The Fuhrman Family Foundation, Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst, Agnes Gund, The Marc Haas Foundation, Hartfield Foundation, KHR McNeely Family Foundation | Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Red Crane Foundation, the Meyer and Deanne Sharlin Foundation, and The Silverweed Foundation.

Public Art Fund exhibitions and programs are also supported in part with public funds from government agencies, including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.