Giant Sculpture Coming To Fort Greene Park, City Says

FORT GREENE, NY — A giant sculpture of several faces inspired by African art will be temporarily installed inside Fort Greene Park as part of a citywide public art project.

Brooklyn-based artist Tanda Francis' piece "Adorn Me" was one of 10 projects to be selected by the Park Department for this year's "Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Parks Expressions" grants to add pieces to sites in all five boroughs.

"This funding brings public art to ten culturally underserved parks, and supports local emerging artists in our communities," Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said in a statement.

"All of the projects chosen correspond to their specific sites, adding a personal connection between each park and its work of art."

Francis previously created a six-foot-tall bust of the Notorious B.I.G. and her work, "examines the African presence in public space as a powerful force of beauty and cultural relevance," the Parks Department wrote on their website.

Her latest piece was made to show the "merging of cultures" around the park by using types of adornments from different cultures on the sculpture, the artist wrote in an email.

"I’m using the overall form of a large African head where I am incorporating contrasting elements of adornment — themes of skin scarification practiced in West African cultures and contrasted this with decorative element seen in Victorian ornamentation," Francis wrote in an email to Patch.

"I seek to address the demographic of people of African decent who are often underrepresented in public art especially in terms of the current historic artwork featured in and around Fort Greene Park."

The Park Department also selected Roberto Visani's piece, "(x)ofmanychildren," to go up in Bed-Stuy's Herbert Von King Park as part of the project.

"Adorn Me" will be installed in Fort Greene Park in June and stay up for a year, Parks said.

Image: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation