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Nari Ward
Smart Tree
On the High Line at West 23rd Street
April 2016 – March 2017
Nari Ward makes sculptural installations from materials he collects in his own neighborhoods—in his original hometown in Jamaica, in various neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York, and most recently in Harlem, where he has lived since 1983. Ranging from a haunting grouping of abandoned baby strollers (Amazing Grace, 1993) to a scrolling script of “We the People” written in dangling shoelaces (We the People, 2011), to a collection of preservative cans filled with neighbors’ smiles (Sugar Hill Smiles, 2014), Ward’s compositions resonate with the materials they comprise. Ward takes up daunting societal topics ranging from healing and health care, to justice and the police, to immigrant identity struggles. All of his artworks wrestle with memory and belonging—from the formal throes of citizenship applications to the personal intimacies of family. Throughout his work, Ward juxtaposes surprising materials and themes, explaining, “I always feel like when I make something, the more absurd it is, the more potential for symbolism and meaning it gains.”
Inspired by a building adjacent to the High Line that had been transformed into an indoor parking lot, Ward reconfigures a memory from his childhood for his High Line Commission, Smart Tree. Returning to his father’s home in Jamaica after fifteen years away, Ward remembers finding one of two abandoned cars in the front yard sprouting a lime tree. He reimagines this fantastical story for the High Line in the form of a Smart car refinished with strips of tire treads and propped up on cinder blocks. In place of a lime tree, Smart Tree will feature an apple tree growing out of its roof, adapted out of necessity for its North American context. With the car’s cinderblock base representing stasis, and its coating of tire treads suggesting perpetual movement, Ward’s Smart Tree holds up a mirror to the flux surrounding the High Line itself and reminds viewers of the High Line’s history as a major transportation artery in Manhattan.
Organized by Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator.
Photos by Timothy Schenck
Artist bio
Nari Ward (b. 1963, Jamaica) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include the Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015); Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, GA (2015); Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2011); and MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2011). Notable group exhibitions include Black: Color, Material, Concept, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2014); and NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, the New Museum, New York (2013). Ward’s work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the Nanjing Biennial, China (2010); Prospect.1, New Orleans (2008); the Whitney Biennial, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006); the Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2006); the Sharjah International Biennial 7, UAE (2005); and the 8th Havana Biennial (2004).
Support
Major support for High Line Art comes from Donald R. Mullen, Jr. and The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston. Additional funding is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Dorothy Lichtenstein. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
