The Listening Sky
Inaugural Exhibition of The Studio Museum in Harlem Sculpture Garden
144 West 125th Street, NYC
(212) 864-4500

Chakaia Booker, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Robert Craddock, Melvin Edwards, Richard Hunt, Tyrone Mitchell, John Outerbridge, Helen Evans Ramsaran, John T.Scott, George Smith, Nari Ward.

Curated by Jorge Daniel Veneciano

The Sculpture Garden is dedicated to the exhibition and study of sculpture by artists of African descent. I must say I was astonished about the difference, to see sculptures which are laying their foundation in a varying range onto different traditions. The european, american modernism and the impressive power of african sculptural traditions meet in a garden which is a juwel in town. The garden is located in a small, former empty piece of land between the Museum itself and the next building. You could go through it from 125th street to 124th street. Hopefully the Museum will have the money to open the garden for this use to pass through. The high walls which frame this small canyon are painted in light clay tone. To the side of 125th street you have a view to some modernist federal buildings where up in the sky airplanes to La Guardia are coming down. To the other side you have the view to an empty, burned out brickstone building. Literally you are in between, the silence of the garden itself with the whispering sound of the sculptures and the sound of the street with its cars and people busy rushing by. Go on a sunny day that you don't miss the light in the canyon.

-Rainald Schumacher

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