“Interventions,” a Shirley Fiterman Art Center Exhibition in Partnership with the Battery Park City Authority, Opens June 3

Two parallel exhibitions, “Interventions—Mildred Howard: In the Line of Fire and Ned Smyth: Moments of Matter and Life,” made possible through a partnership between the Shirley Fiterman Art Center (SFAC) at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) and the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), open June 3 and will be on display through September 25.

“The Shirley Fiterman Art Center is thrilled to partner with the Battery Park City Authority to present the works of Howard and Smyth, both of whom are internationally recognized artists that have created distinctive bodies of work and have extensive histories of and commitments to public art,” says SFAC Director Lisa Panzera.

The artwork will be viewed from the exterior of the galleries through the large street-front windows on Barclay Street, Park Place and West Broadway. Works by Howard and Smyth will also be displayed outdoors at nearby Battery Park City.

SFAC and BPCA partnership bridges public parks, gallery art and public art

Together, the gallery and outdoor components of the “Interventions” exhibition bookend the history of BPCA’s Public Art program.

Ned Smyth’s “The Upper Room” (1987) was the first Battery Park City public art commission and Mildred Howard’s “The House That Will Not Pass For Any Color Than Its Own” (2011) is its most recent temporary project on view.

“Public art plays an important role across Battery Park City, inspiring residents and visitors alike,” said BPCA President and CEO B.J. Jones.“We’re now honored to collaborate with our partners at BMCC on the free “Interventions” exhibition at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center, connecting Ned Smyth’s and Mildred Howard’s works in Battery Park City while continuing our efforts to bridge the worlds of public education, public parks and public art.”

“Battery Park City’s public art collection is like envisioning what a free art museum can be by transforming public space,” said Abby Ehrlich, Director of Community Partnerships and Public Art for BPCA.

“The art is always accessible to see without walls and do-not-touch rules. It’s a public art collection of the highest caliber created on fertile ground for ideas, reflection and discourse. Our partners at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College have created an impressive realization of a large, pluralistic place of higher learning — designed for students with strong aspirations. It’s wonderful to work together.”

As part of the “Interventions” exhibition which will display works indoors at the SFAC, Mildred Howard’s “The House That Will Not Pass For Any Color Than Its Own” will be on view at Belvedere Plaza at BPCA through Spring 2022 and Ned Smyth’s “The Upper Room” is permanently on view at the entrance to the Esplanade at Albany Street, at BPCA.

Public art in BPC and exhibition at SFAC stir imagination and connections

The exhibition grew from conversations between Directors Panzera and Ehrlich.

“New thoughts generated by art can promote awareness about cultural and civic challenges,” says Ehrlich. “BPC’s collection of culturally diverse and historically important art is integrated into an urban park across the street from the college where more than 20,000 students speak over a hundred languages. Public art has the unique ability to connect us. Just as art changes the urban landscape in surprising ways, it also can stir people’s perceptions, imagination and sense of social cohesion.”

According to Ehrlich, artists Mildred Howard and Ned Smyth, “are elegant designers, world travelers and educators. They are inventive, civic-minded and concerned deeply with equity.”

In addition to their thriving gallery and museum successes, she says, both artists remain dedicated to creating art for public places.

“With this exhibition in combination with art installations in Battery Park City parks, visitors view significant and engaging work from both of the artists’ career arcs and in two contrasting, beautiful and free settings,” Ehrlich says.

Exhibition showcases artists’ commitment to social justice, issues of scale and more

The work of Berkeley-based artist Mildred Howard reflects her commitment to issues of social justice and community activism, says Director Panzera, while the work of Ned Smyth, who came of age artistically in the Tribeca and SoHo neighborhoods of lower Manhattan in the 1970s — and now lives on Long Island — investigates process, materiality and architectonic space.

The exhibition will present “In the Line of Fire,” approximately 60 life-size figures by Howard made of cut-out sheets of plywood that have been silkscreen-printed.

“The printed image is of a single repeated figure — a young African American man in his teens, who was a distant relative of the artist, and who had been drafted or enlisted into the U.S. Army during the First World War,” says Panzera. “The regiment of young soldiers speaks to Howard’s ongoing investigation of history and personal narrative to address aspects of identity, race, identity and violence.”

Ned Smyth, who has long been interested in architectural spaces, will pair some of his earliest work from the 1970s with a group of recent sculptural and photographic investigations.

“Moments of Matter and Life” will highlight Smyth’s continuing engagement with matter and the most fundamental elements of creation and construction, tracing a path from his earliest to his most recent work,” says Panzera. “Experimenting with found stones and twigs that Smyth translates into various mediums and formats, he explores issues of scale and material.”