Mad. Sq. Park

Dedicated to keeping Madison Square Park a bright, beautiful & lively public park.

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New York In The Snow, 1892-1920

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Proud to be part of Flatiron

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Proud to be Green

Madison Square Park is proud to work with New York Restoration Project to compost organic material, such as leaves, plants and grass clippings, that we collect in the park in an effort to be green. Often, such organic waste is placed in a landfill where the normally rapid decomposition process is slowed by an absence of oxygen. Oxygen allows organism to convert the organic material into rich compost, which can be used to amend soil and add nutrients to promote healthier plants that do not require chemical fertilizers.

So, with the help of the New York Restoration Project (NYRP), Madison Square Park has been able to eliminate hundreds of bags of organic material that would have normally sat uselessly in a landfill, and converted them into compost. This year alone we have already sent 300 bags of organic material to be composted. NYRP uses the compost that they have created in community gardens, parks and public spaces throughout the city.

Madison Square Park also has several smaller compost bins that we use onsite. These bins allow us to create our own compost for the park. We would like to expand this program, but we realize that a large scale composting operation within park confines is not feasible. This is why we are so pleased to have such a wonderful partnership with New York Restoration Project, which helps us to run a more green operation by reducing much of the waste that we produce. 

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Mad. Sq. Art: Jacco Olivier

Mad. Sq. Art is pleased to announce an outdoor exhibition of six painterly animations by acclaimed Dutch artist Jacco Olivier as the final presentation of its 2011 season. Mad. Sq. Art celebrates the artist’s first public art commission in New York City, which will feature both new, site-specific and existing works displayed throughout the Park. Olivier’s series of stop-motion animations will brighten New York’s winter landscape with moving images exemplary of the artist’s characteristically rich color palette and lavishly textured style. The exhibition will remain on view daily in Madison Square Park from December 15, 2011 through March 12, 2012.

Beginning with a single image, Olivier introduces subtle alterations with each additional layer through his process of over-painting.  After he paints and re-paints his images, Olivier photographs each stage of the process as stop-motion animation until an original no longer exists. The resulting work reveals a history of the painting process that captures scraps of narrative and visual iconography brought to light as a moving painting.

According to the artist, Jacco Olivier, exhibiting in Madison Square Park provides “an opportunity to go totally abstract and see things on a molecular level, to change perspective[…] to show an animation in the ground, you really have to look down to see it, which creates a little private moment for the viewer that is free of narrative, subject or meaning.”

President of the Madison Square Park Conservancy, Debbie Landau comments, “Mad. Sq. Art is pleased to bring Jacco Olivier and his richly colorful work to Madison Square Park. The subtle yet engaging quality of his animations will infuse an appreciated energy into the Park during the winter months ahead, drawing connections between scenes of natural landscape in his beautiful, painterly animations and the natural life of the Park that so commonly lays hidden beneath the snow each winter.”

Olivier’s exhibition for Madison Square Park will feature a combination of his larger and more intimate works including: Stumble (2009); Hide (2004); Rabbit Hole (2011); Bird (2011); Deer (2011); and Home (2004). Animations will be displayed on screens imbedded in and suspended throughout the Park’s existing landscape, equally animating life in the Park’s heavily trafficked and quieter spaces. Olivier’s moving images of flora and fauna are set to artfully draw parallels to their natural accompaniments in Madison Square Park for its 50,000 daily visitors.

In connection with the exhibition, Mad. Sq. Art will publish a limited-edition exhibition catalogue designed by Pentagram, featuring a scholarly essay about Olivier’s new work along with full-color photographs by acclaimed photographer James Ewing.  The publication will mark the first time Mad. Sq. Art has documented a moving-image project with a printed catalogue.

About the Artist:

Dutch artist Jacco Olivier (b. 1972) studied at the Rijksakademie, and lives and works in Amsterdam.  In 2010 he had solo exhibitions at the Centro de Arte de Caja de Burgos, Spain, and at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston, Texas. He was included in exhibitions at the MCA Denver (2006), ZKM, Museum fur Neue Kunst & Medienmuseum, Karlsruhe (2007) and in the 8th SITE Santa Fe Biennial: The Dissolve, curated by Daniel Belasco and Sarah Lewis (2010). In 2012, Olivier will participate in a residency program at Artspace in San Antonio, Texas. Jacco Olivier is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin; and Parra & Romero Galeria de Arte, Madrid; and Ron Mandos Gallery in Amsterdam.  His exhibition in Madison Square Park is Olivier’s New York public art debut.

Mad. Sq. Art and Madison Square Park Conservancy:

Mad. Sq. Art is the free, contemporary art program of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Major Support for Mad. Sq. Art is provided by Liane Ginsberg, Agnes Gund, Jennifer and Matthew Harris, Toby Devan Lewis, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Irving Harris Foundation and Anonymous. Substantial support is provided by Raymond Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Melissa S. Meyer, Ronald A. Pizzuti, The Rudin Family, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Leslie and Howard Zemsky, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust and the Sol LeWitt Fund for Artist Work.

Major Support for the Jacco Olivier exhibition is provided by the Mondriaan Foundation.  This program is supported, in part, by the Netherlands Cultural Services. Substantial support is provided by Marianne Boesky Gallery, NYC & Co., and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.  Delta Air Lines is the official airline of Mad. Sq. Art.  Mad. Sq. Art is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Since its inception in 2004, Mad. Sq. Art has commissioned and presented twenty premier installations in Madison Square Park by acclaimed artists ranging in practice and media. Mad. Sq. Art has exhibited  works by artists including Bill Beirne Jim Campbell, Richard Deacon, Bill Fontana, Ernie Gehr, Antony Gormley, Jene Highstein, Tadashi Kawamata, Mel Kendrick, Sol LeWitt, Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Roxy Paine, Jaume Plensa, Shannon Plumb, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Jessica Stockholder, Mark di Suvero, and William Wegman, among others.

In March 2011, Mad. Sq. Art received the International Art Critics Association (AICA-USA)’s 2010 Second Place award for “Best Project in a Public Space” for the organization’s exhibition of Antony Gormley: Event Horizon, which featured 31 sculptures of the human form placed in and around Madison Square Park and on the rooftops of architectural treasures throughout New York City’s Flatiron District and environs.  In Spring 2011, Mad. Sq. Art presented the New York City public art debut of acclaimed Spanish artist Jaume Plensa with the premiere of Echo, a towering 44-foot-tall sculpture of the face of a young girl in dream state. Most recently, Mad. Sq. Art. premiered Alison Saar’s Feallan and Fallow, a six piece installation featuring four newly commissioned works by the Los Angeles-based artist.  Feallan and Fallow will remain on view through December 31, 2011 and will coincide with the premiere of Jacco Olivier’s exhibition.

The Madison Square Park Conservancy, a public/private partnership with New York City Parks & Recreation, is the nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping historic Madison Square Park a bright, beautiful and lively public space.

For more information on the Madison Square Park Conservancy and its programs, please visit http://madisonsquarepark.org.

*Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York / Madison Square Park Conservancy

MEDIA CONTACT: FITZ & CO, Concetta Duncan, Tel: [phone] x232,

E: [email protected]

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La Mar NYC Sits Down With MSPC

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with two important faces behind La Mar NYC. Executive Chef Victoriano Lopez and General Manager N. A. Nadir are at the helm of celebrity chef Gastón Acurio’s first NYC restaurant. The duo has transformed Tabla’s old space at 11 Madison Avenue into a new and exciting destination with exceptional Peruvian cuisine on the edge of Madison Square Park.

What drew Gastón to want to open a La Mar in NYC?

Victoriano: The dream of many of the chefs we’ve worked with was to open a restaurant in New York. They joined their dreams together and all of his Peruvian chefs helped him to open a restaurant in NY.

Nadir: I think it’s also about getting Peruvian culture, Peruvian food and Peruvian tradition and that sense of hospitality brought into it and really putting what Peru is all about onto the map.

What is your favorite thing about this specific space and working outside Madison Square Park?

Nadir: We have something really great to emulate with EMP next door to us. We want the same thing, the reputation, the collaboration that Danny Meyer has with Madison Square Park, because when we look out these beautiful windows we see this gorgeous park and the festival of life that is happening outside. We want La Mar to be part of that celebration.

Victoriano:  Anyone would feel privileged to work in a beautiful space. I mean, the kitchen is grand, the beautiful park and to work in the Credit Suisse building. Everybody knows about this building. It’s a landmark.

How has your experience been?

Victoriano: It’s been really great. I am getting to learn the New York culture too. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from our customers and I really try to cater to those, but it’s been very positive.

What has been the biggest challenge?

Victoriano: To do everything perfect every day. That’s the challenge.

Nadir: The quality of the product has to be at 100%. If it’s not good enough for Victoriano, we don’t put it on a plate.

How much input did you have in shaping the menu? Did you and Gastón Acurio work hand in hand?

Victoriano: It has been a collaboration from day one, even before we started in New York. Peruvian cuisine is already here. We are not here to reinvent Peruvian cuisine, but to present the staples of Peruvian cuisine to NYC. From day one we have been talking about what those staples are. We each have our own ideas of how to do it, but we work through it together.

Where do you get your products from?

Victoriano: We try to purchase sustainable products when they are available and to preserve sea life. We get our organic produce like potatoes, herbs and vegetables from the farmers market in Union Square. For the fish we try to source everything locally. We only use 5 fish in the restaurant at this time: fluke, red snapper, tuna, hamachi and halibut. Our culture is to try to preserve sea life. So if there is something in risk of extinction, we don’t use that.

The space is beautiful. How have you transformed it to make it your own?

Nadir: Its Victoriano’s vision. When you look at the plates, the colors, its the joy that Victoriano puts into it, we didn’t want to take away from that. When you are sitting in the dining room it really looks like you are sitting inside of a bowl. We really wanted to play up on that. Touching with little touches whether it’s the amazon rainfall or the corn statues, the corn wall we put up. Putting little touches of Peru into it. And then of course Victoriano finishes it out with the knockout plates that hit the table.

How would you describe Peruvian cuisine to people who haven’t tried it?

Victoriano: It’s refreshing, healthy cuisine.

Nadir: The food is just not something you put on a plate. There’s a passion and a love that goes behind creating that dish and showing it. With ours we really want to highlight what Peru is all about. I think for the longest time it has been pushed in the backwaters. It should be in the forefront. Here is an amazing, healthy food that you can sit here and have every day. We want you to have a ceviche at 11:30 in the morning, and you could have it at midnight and it’s still the beautiful clear textures. The healthiness of it, the lightness. We want everybody to dig in and feel like a family and have fun with it.

What is your favorite dish?

Victoriano: One dish that I’ve been eating since I was a little kid is ceviche. In Peru, every three, four blocks in certain areas, there is a lady with a food cart and she makes the ceviche fresh for you right there.

Nadir: In Peru they have beautiful little ceviches. It’s not fancy, it’s not elegant it’s not on the beautiful plates that Victoriano uses. It’s in a little bowl. They give it to you and you eat it right there. They put a little bit of passion into it. It’s a little love affair. There are food trucks where the people who are lined up barely make any money and at the same time there are people in Mercedes Benzes waiting to eat from the same cart. It’s also the hospitality factor that the Peruvians bring into it. That’s what we want to bring to Mad. Sq. Park – we want to be that representation of Peru.

Would you like to add anything?

Nadir:  We feel very welcome in Madison Square Park. We look forward to a great partnership with everybody here.

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Full of Colors: Madison Square Park, NYC

P.S. Like NYC Photos if you Love New York

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Mad. Sq. Holiday 2011

Seasons Greetings from MSP! Join us for a festive gathering of the annual tree lighting ceremony with tasty treats and warm sweets for all to enjoy.

Get cozy and bring family and friends to watch as the holiday magic begins. The New York Life Singers will make the moment just right, then Audra Rox will close out the night. The kids will be joyous and so will you, as we march into the season along Fifth Avenue.

Mad. Sq. Holiday will take place in the Northern Plaza of Madison Square Park, rain or shine on December 6th at 4:30 pm.

Mad. Sq. Holiday is supported by Walgreens, Marimekko, The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership, Hill Country Barbecue Market, Hill Country Chicken and Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen.

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Never Forget: Veterans Day Parade 2011

Beginning early this morning, preparations began in Madison Square Park to host the Veterans Day Parade opening ceremony and wreath laying ceremony.

Today marks the largest Veteran’s Day Parade in NYC with over 25,000 people present. Starting at the Eternal Light Memorial Flagpole, a bevy of esteemed guests honored our Veterans.  Among those marching are 27 active military units, 6 Medal of Honor recipients, veterans groups and other proud supporters of our nation’s armed forces.

The pride and appreciation for our veterans was palpable as speeches were made celebrating US Veterans, past and present, at the opening ceremony. Speakers included US Senator Charles Schumer, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and CIA Director, General David Petraeus among many other distinguished guests.

The theme of this year’s 92nd annual Veterans Day parade was “Never Forget,” commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11/2001. Additional recognitions include the 70th Anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the 50th Anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War and the 100th Anniversary of naval aviation.

Madison Square Park is extremely proud to host the Veterans Day Parade opening ceremony and take part in honoring the brave men and women who throughout history have answered our nation’s call to step up and risk their lives to preserve freedom in the United States and throughout the world.

Thank you Veterans for all of your sacrifices.

The Veterans Day Parade runs along 5th avenue, beginning at 23rd Street and ending at 56th.

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MSPC Staff Planting

This past Wednesday, Madison Square Park Conservancy’s office-bound staff escaped the Eleven Madison building and had some fun in the dirt.

With the help of our amazing gardeners, our 10 MSPC staff members planted 6,000 bulbs in Worth Square. We got our hands dirty while planting a range of bulbs, including Grape Hyacinth, crocuses, species tulips and daffodils.

Planting bulbs, especially that many, was not easy work.  The indoor staff gained even more respect for our gardeners who are in the process of planting nearly 55,000 bulbs that will make Madison Square Park bursting with color come springtime.

While we have an idea of what the flowers will look like, we cannot wait for spring to come to see our hard work come to fruition.

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timeoutnewyork:

Salute the throngs of brave servicemen and women participating in the annual march along Fifth Avenue, which turns 92 this year. It begins at 11:11am (on 11/11/11, no less).

Opening Ceremonies begin in Mad. Sq. Park at 10:30. Come join us!

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nydaily:

Madison Square Park & Empire State Building in the morning.

Press Like if you Love New York: www.facebook.com/nycdaily

Look at those colors!

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Remember Jim Campbell's Scattered Lights in Madison Square Park last year?

Well, Jim Campbell is working on a new piece that's even larger.

Read Gizmodo's article about the new piece, Exploded Views

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Credit Suisse Volunteer Planting

On Friday, November 4, another group of Credit Suisse volunteers pulled on their gardening gloves and helped plant 1,500 viridiflora tulip bulbs in Madison Square Park.  The viridiflora tulips, which will bloom in a mélange of cream, pink, salmon and orange/yellow, were planted in the beds along the Northern Reflecting Pool. Viridiflora tulips usually bloom in late spring, but are known to be capable of flowering for a remarkably long time.

Madison Square Park would like to thank the Credit Suisse volunteers. They have done an amazing job this year. Look out for a post about their last volunteer activity for 2011, decorating the Park for the holiday season.

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Map of the City of New York's Park Locations

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nycopendata:

<a href=”http://nycopendata.socrata.com/Facilities-and-Structures/Map-of-Parks/jc79-4imn” _mce_href=”http://nycopendata.socrata.com/Facilities-and-Structures/Map-of-Parks/jc79-4imn” title=”Map of Parks” target=”_blank”>Map of Parks</a>

More information available on NYC’s Open Data Website

Glad Mad. Sq. Park is part of all that green!

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Hawk Sighting

We had an unexpected visitor at Madison Square Park today. This red tailed hawk was spotted lounging around the park.

Although red tails are the most common hawk in the United States, they are significantly less common in urban areas.  It is unfortunate that we do not have more hawks in the city as they help keep down rodent populations. One hawk in particular is famous for starring in two documentaries and while I don’t know if this hawk is the famous Pale Male, it’s nice to see some variety in a city full of pigeons.

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Cub Scouts Service

With Veterans Day less than a week away, Cub Scout Pack 526 came to Madison Square Park to do community service and pay tribute.

Last Saturday the Cub Scouts spent their day cleaning the Eternal Light Memorial Flagpole in Madison Square Park. The Eternal Light Flagpole was erected on November 11, 1923 to honor the Army and Navy troops from World War I. The Cub Scouts used the cleaning activity as their own way to honor and learn about US Veterans. Several of the pack members had great grandfathers who had served during the World Wars.

The Cub Scouts will also be marching in the Veterans Day Parade this Friday,  November 11.

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MSP Impacts Public Art

Sarah Douglas from the The Art Newspaper shares the chronological progression and popularity of outdoor art in her article The Outsiders.

The Art Newspaper

“The Outsiders,” by Sarah Douglas

November 2011

One of those is Madison Square Park, in Midtown, an example of how edgy public art has contributed to urban renewal. Debbie Landau, head of the conservancy, which runs the public art programme, has been with the park since 1996. Its first art project was Tony Oursler’s The Influence Machine in 2000 in collaboration with the Public Art Fund; a $1m grant from Target stores brought more art in 2001. In 2002, the conservancy became a registered non-profit with part or its mission to bring in art projects. Again, the lion’s share of its funding comes from private sources.

The conservancy’s first major project was an installation by Mark di Suvero in 2004. By 2007, the park was undertaking its current four projects a year. In 2010, Antony Gromley’s Event Horizon figures populated the ground and surrounding rooftops; a huge sculpture of a head by Jaume Plensa dominated the park over the summer. Currently installed are figurative works by Alison Saar.