Works in Public

The League’s exclusive public sculpture program, presented in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

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about the program

Create site-specific, large-scale public sculptures.

Works in Public, originally known as Model the Monument, is a fully-funded program that invites artists to conceive of, create, and install site-specific sculptures in partnership with League instructors, Works in Public advisors, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Sculptures created in the Works in Public program are displayed in a year-long exhibition at Riverside Park.

See Latest Exhibition

Program Prospectus

From conception, to construction.

Works in Public is a selective and demanding program. Each artist works independently to fulfill their requirements, while collaborating with renowned sculptors and program directors Haksul Lee and Natsuki Takauji to ensure their artwork is ready for display. Works in Public fellows receive a monthly stipend and a scholarship for a full-time class at the League for the duration of the program.

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Installations

From New York City Parks to the Florida Keys Sculpture Trail.

More than 50 Works in Public artworks have been displayed in year-long public exhibitions at Riverside Park South and Riverside Park at 145th Street. Following their debut in New York City, Works in Public installations often find permanent homes. Since 2017, sculptures created in the Works in Public program are elligible for permanent installation in Monroe County, FL as part of the 81-mile Florida Keys Sculpture Trail. Other Works in Public installations have been relocated and are permanently on display at SUNY Rockland.

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Student Showcase

Helen Draves, Hope, 2023.

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Susan Markowitz Meredith, LIFE DANCE, 2023.

Tanda Francis, Everyone Breaks, 2016.

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Aaron Bell, Stand Tall, Stand Loud, 2015.

Sheila Berger, Avis Gloriae et Laudis, 2016.

Shiho Sato, Fragments, 2016.

Markus Rudolph Holtby, Leaves of Grass, 2016.

Lee Apt, Jubilation, 2014.

Ken Shih, Can Love Pervade Space?, 2014.

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Ken Shih, Can Love Pervade Space?, 2014.

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Kathleen Jansyn Thaw, Fragmentof an Angel, 2014.

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Phyllis Sanfiorenzo, Atabey'sLand Haven, 2013.

Natsuki Takauji, Window, 2013.

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Minako Yoshino, Lovers, 2013.

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Lindsay McCosh, Harbor for Industry, 2013.

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Laura Barmack, Just Passing Through, 2013.

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Janet Fekete-Bolton, The Architecture of Nature, 2013.

Ana Sofia Marti Monroy, Everyday, 2013.

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Anna Rabinowitz, Preservation High and Dry, 2012.

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Yasumitsu Morito, Spirit, 2012.

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Sherwin Banfield, Transitions, 2012.

Reina Kubota, Ringo, 2012.

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John Erianne, A Frolicking Stray, 2012.

Benat Iglesias, The Bathers, 2012.

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Sequoyah Aono, Watching Upon the Present, 2011.

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Roberto Franzone, Red Arches, 2011.

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Renata Pugh, Coalescence, 2011.

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Olga Rudenko, Existence Within, 1 & 2, 2011.

Michael Cloud Hirschfeld, Hardcovers, 2011.

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Haksul Lee, Proceeding+Being, 2011.

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Damien Vera, Cope, 2011.

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Selva Sanjines, Flight Past to Future, 2010.

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Noa Shay, Wish, 2010.

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Matte White, Seiren, 2010.

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John Balsamo, The New Age, 2010.

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Elizabeth Allison, River Gazers, 2010.

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Allston Chapman, Looking Up, 2010.

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Akihiro Ito, Tomorrow, 2010.

Frank Michielli, Moire 3, 2019.

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Gaia Grossi, Gaea, 2019.

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Jeff Sundheim, Coming Ashore: Wave, 2019.

Related Exhibitions

Program Directors

Haksul Lee

Haksul Lee holds a BFA in Sculpture from Kwandong University (Korea) and a BA in Art History from Queens College (NY), and furthered his studies at the League. Lee’s work explores the psychological impact of forms and movements from both natural and artificial environments, encompassing representational works with symbolic meaning, geometric and organic abstractions, and kinetic sculptures. His work has been showcased nationally and internationally. His gallery exhibitions and public installations include the Weight of Space at SLA art space, the Exposition Des Artistes Du Comite National Monegasque De L’A.I.A.R.-U.N.E.S.C.O. in Monaco, 'Giving Tree' in Flushing Meadow Corona Park, and 'What is your name' at LaGuardia Airport. His work and public projects have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CUNY TV's 'Asian American Life', and Time Out Magazine. In addition to his artistic pursuits, Lee's extensive experience in project management, fabrication, and installation led him to be a specialist of the kind: Before he became co-Director of the program, he had been the program consultant and fabricator for years. Additionally, he worked as a fabricator for renowned artists such as Louise Bourgeois and more.

Natsuki Takauji

Natsuki Takauji exhibited her first large-scale public sculpture as part of the 2013-14 Works in Public/Model to Monument program. Since, she has had installations of her large-scale sculpture displayed across the United States and beyond. Her work was featured in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018, and she has exhibited paintings and mixed-media wall sculptures in group and solo exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Pomona Art Center, Berkeley College Gallery, and the Affordable Art Fair NYC. She curated the show METAL at Governors Island, presented by the Sculptors Alliance. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Ms. Takauji received a B.A. in Creative Writing at Waseda University, Japan and also studied painting and sculpture at the Art Students League. She has been teaching Metal Sculpture at the League since 2013 and has been a director of the Works in Public program since 2020.

Featured Collaborators

Melanie Kress

Melanie Kress is a curator and writer based in New York City. She is Senior Curator for Public Art Fund and Critic at Yale University School of Art. Previously, Kress held roles as Curator of High Line Art (2014–2023), where she oversaw performance, video, and sculpture exhibitions, as well as educational and engagement initiatives for the program; and Co-Founder of project space Concrete Utopia (2010–2012). She has commissioned and produced projects with artists including Maria Thereza Alves, Torkwase Dyson, Lubaina Himid, Zoe Leonard, Ligia Lewis, Duane Linklater, Will Rawls, and Carmen Winant, among many others. She holds a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Michael Joo

Employing diverse media and materials, Korean-American artist Michael Joo (b. 1966, New York, USA) draws together creative and scientific modes in innovative conceptual work that reflects on the intersection between technology, perception, and the natural environment. Joo’s materials are as diverse as his body of research, ranging from human sweat, silver nitrate, and bamboo.Major exhibitions of Joo's work include Perspectives: Michael Joo, Smithsonian Freer | Sackler Museum, Washington, DC, USA; 49th Venice Biennale, Korean Pavilion, Italy; Sensory Meridian, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, USA; Michael Joo, Conserving Momentum (Egg/Gyro/Laundry Room), White Cube London, UK; Michael Joo: Drift, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, USA; Michael Joo: Drift (Bronx), The Bronx Museum of Arts, New York, NY, USA; Michael Joo, Doppelganger, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Sussex, UK; and Michael Joo Retrospective, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach, CA, USA.Joo is a Senior Critic in Sculpture at Yale University and teaches in the Columbia University MFA program. His work is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Denver Art Museum; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, among others.Next

Featured Alumni

Sherwin Banfield

Sherwin Banfield is a Queens, NY based mixed-media artist. Recent projects, which he refers to as Sustainable Sonic Sculpture, combine lighting, sound and solar power with traditional sculpture. Banfield holds a BFA with honors from Parsons School of Design and studied figurative sculpture at the Art Students League of New York with Barney Hodes. He is a recipient of the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund Grant, the NYC Art in the Parks: Alliance for FMCP Grant, the Socrates Annual Emerging Artist Fellowship, the Fantasy Fund Fellowship at Modern Art Foundry, the Art Students League of New York’s Works in Public/Model to Monument Fellowship, and the Augusta Savage Grant from the National Sculpture Society.

Minako Yoshino

Minako Yoshino is a Japanese-born sculptor who studied at Musashino Art University in Tokyo before moving to New York City to study artistic human anatomy at the Art Students League where she met her mentor, sculptor Seiji Saito, a former assistant of Isamu Noguchi. Minako has mastered traditional techniques of sculpting stone by hand that have become a rarity in today's art world. Since creating her first monument Lovers as part of the Works in Public/Model to Monument program, Yoshino has been designing and fabricating monuments and memorials for parks and gardens around the world. Her works include paintings, kimono designs, landscapes with stone sculptures, and landmark restorations.

Sequoyah Aono

Sequoyah Aono is a New York-based sculptor born in Naples and raised in Tokyo. He has an MFA in sculpture from Tokyo University of the Arts with continued education at the Art Students League of New York. His work is mainly representational and depicts the human figure in stone and wood. Recent commissions include permanent outdoor sculpture Dexter Head at the POLA Museum of Art and Ken at the Asago Art Village Museum, both in Japan. He has participated in several international stone sculpture symposiums in Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, and Japan. His work also appeared in the 2013 Florence Biennale. He was awarded third prize at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for his wood sculpture Self-Portrait in 2013-2014.

Sheila Berger

Sheila Berger was born in St Louis, Missouri and educated at NYU, the Art Students League and New York Academy of the Arts. She has shown her work everywhere from the Rubin Museum in NY, the Bemis Center in Omaha; the American Consulate in Istanbul, and the US Embassy in Laos. A longtime resident of the Chelsea Hotel, she previously lived in Paris and Italy and currently divides her time between Manhattan and the Argentine."

Sydney Shen

Sydney Shen, born in 1989 in Woodbridge, now lives and works in New York. She completed her BFA at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York in 2011. Shen uses sculptures and installations to create an atmosphere of wretched apprehension, examining the limitation of mentality through the extremity of the physical body. Her solo exhibitions and projects include: First Chair, Gallery Vacancy at Art Basel Hong Kong, 2023; Cupio Dissolvi, Gallery Vacancy at Liste Art Fair Basel, 2021; Strange But True, Queens Museum, New York, 2021; Misery Whip, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, 2021; Every Good Boy Does Fine, and more.

Malin Abrahamsson

Malin Abrahamsson’s work is about transformation, which she describes as “equal parts survival instinct and rebellion against stasis.” A multi-disciplinary artist, she’s currently working on a series of small-scale objects that continue a formal exploration of color, space, and composition, with a specific focus on the transformative qualities of physical matter. The recipient of several residencies, grants and awards, Malin has exhibited in New York and abroad. She has completed a number of public commissions, most recently an interactive sound & sculpture installation at PS 377 in Queens, commissioned by NYC Department of Education and Public Art for Public Schools. Her animations have screened at Toride train station in Tokyo, Japan, as well as at MoMA and PACE University. Malin received a BFA with an honorable mention from The School of Visual Arts in 1998. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Our Supporters

Works in Public is supported, in part, by The Harry Feinberg Family Foundation, John Padget, The Dr Lawrence Spielberger & Dr Greta Spanierman Family Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. We gratefully acknowledge our community partners the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Riverside Park Conservancy, Manhattan Community Board 7, and Manhattan Community Board 9. Generous in-kind support is provided by Brandywine Valley Fabricators.

For more information, email wip@artstudentsleague.org. To support the program, please email development@artstudentsleague.org.

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Works in Public

Create site-specific, large-scale public sculptures.

From conception, to construction.