Isabelle Cornaro’s artwork stands amid a canopy of trees and cheery hedgenettle. Photo by Timothy Schenck

The presence of High Line Art’s group exhibition Archeo changes with the seasons. In summer, as lush foliage reaches up, encircles, and even obscures parts of the artworks, the visitor’s experience is almost that of a treasure hunt. Rather than seeing an artwork from a block away, sometimes a pause or slower walking pace is necessary to notice a piece peeking out from the back of a planting bed.

The three sculptures of God Box (column) by French artist Isabelle Cornaro – one of which is pictured here – are both alien and familiar, and both at home and foreign within the High Line’s landscape. One can imagine they are monuments of a futuristic society or that they were dropped here by visitors from another planet. After all, that was High Line Art Curator Cecilia Alemani’s intention.

“On the High Line – where freight trains used to run 30 feet above the street, in a landscape worthy of the futuristic machinations of a science fiction movie – the sculptures presented in Archeo punctuate the landscape in unusual ways, creating a gallery of artifacts from a futuristic past,” Cecilia said at Archeo’s installation earlier this spring.

Download the current High Line Art Map to learn more about all of High Line Art’s current artworks on view.