The Arts Center at Governors Island is now closed to the public. We hope you'll visit us in 2023!
Exhibitions in our galleries at The Arts Center examine themes of ecology and sustainability in our surrounding world. They prompt us to question our understandings and connections between nature and society and to consider structures of justice and other intertwined systems. Yto Barrada, Bettina, Michael Wang, Yoko Ono, Meg Webster, Onyedika Chuke, and Muna Malik are some of the artists featured at The Arts Center.
Our 2022 exhibitions and installations included: Sun Seekers, a site-specific exhibition with performances by Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin; Back and Song, a four-channel video installation by Elissa Blount-Moorhead and Bradford Young; and Pillars, a participatory sculpture installation by Simon Benjamin.
All programming and events at The Arts Center are free and open to the public, and all are welcome.
2022
Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin:
Sun Seekers
Sun Seekers, created by sisters Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin, is a body of immersive installation, sculptural, and performance work meant to promote healing through disconnecting with technology and reconnecting with the natural world.
Elissa Blount-Moorhead and Bradford Young:
Back and Song
Back and Song is a meditative four-channel film and art installation that reflects on how the pursuit of health is at the root of how life, breath, joy, and pain manifest in black experience from cradle to grave. The kaleidoscopic installation considers the labor and care provided by generations of black healers—doctors, nurses, midwives, morticians, therapists, and health aides—and their histories of contribution to and resistance from the flawed and discriminatory structures of Western medicine.
Simon Benjamin:
Pillars
LMCC proudly presented the first U.S.-based installation of Pillars by Jamaican-born artist Simon Benjamin. A new iteration of Diorama, an interactive video and installation work first exhibited at the 2017 Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Pillars continues Benjamin’s investigation into people of the African Diaspora and their evolving relationship with the sea.
2021
Onyedika Chuke:
The Forever Museum Archive_Circa 6000BCE
Presented in partnership with Pioneer Works
Curated by Gabriel Florenz
Part of an ongoing project that mines connections between history, archive, knowledge production and power, this iteration is focused on the US carceral system - its starting point and evolution.
2021 Participatory Project
Muna Malik:
Blessing of the Boats
We have an opportunity to set sail towards a new future. What society would you build and how do we get there?
Through active engagement and participation, this work asks the viewer to think about the society they would like to live within and how they might take steps to help shift it in that direction.
2019
Michael Wang:
Extinct in New York
The gallery becomes a greenhouse, a sanctuary of care, and a time capsule for the city's extinct flora in Michael Wang's reverent Extinct in New York.
Yto Barrada with guest artist Bettina:
The Power of Two Suns
Yto Barrada with guest artist Bettina reflects on our individual and collective reactions to the onset of disaster– can solace be found in the power of solidarity?
Through documentary abstraction channeled through clear lines, simple shapes and reduced palette, Yto Barrada with guest artist Bettina imagine a quieter beginning.
2019 Participatory Project
Yoko Ono:
Wish Trees
Situated at the entrance of the Arts Center, Yoko Ono's participatory project, Wish Trees was Ono’s open invitation to viewers to write their wishes on small tags and then hang them on a live tree–creating a living monument to all dreams, big and small.