17 PUBLIC ART INSTALLATIONS TO SEE IN NYC, MAY 2023

untapped New York

8. Sunroom Project Space Season at Wave Hill

Jae Hi Ahn The Condolence Message, 2023 (detail) Microcentrifuge tubes, wire, glue, wood, watercolor on paper, paper cutout, stoneware clay, porcelain clay, glaze Dimensions variable Photo: Stefan Hagen. Courtesy of Wave Hill.

Every year, Wave Hill’s Sunroom Project Space exhibits the work of six artists in the garden’s Sunroom and Sun Porch spaces at Glyndor Gallery. After having their applications reviewed by a panel of art professionals, the following artists were chosen to exhibit their work: Jae Hi Ahn, Jill Cohen-Nuñez, Bel Falleiros, Jacq Groves, Max Sarmiento and Grace Troxell. The installations will be on view from May through October. The first installation to go up is Jae Hi Ahn’s The Condolence Message.

The sculptural work is “based in part on a sympathy letter that a 16th-century ancestor wrote to his late wife—who passed due to postpartum-related complications—and on a condolence-message project that circulated during the Covid-19 pandemic.” The porcelain teacups and plates placed on the floor are inspired by Baekja Myeonggi, ceramics found inside the coffin of Mrs. Kwak, the late wife of Ahn’s ancestor Minhak Ahn. In the Korean memorial service Jesa, ancestors are honored on the day of their death with offerings of rice, dried fish, and fruit. The spindly purple sculpture is made up of plastic microcentrifuge tubes, a tool typically used for processing biological samples. The final element of the installation consists of fantastical watercolors of flowers found in Wave Hill’s gardens. These images are loosely based on letters of the Korean alphabet and incorporate images of traditional Korean accessories, tying Korean traditions to the Bronx site.

-Nicole Saraniero “Untapped New York”