New York Ave Sculpture Project

NY Ave Sculpture Project: Chakaia Booker on view March 8, 2012–March 9, 2014.

Internationally renowned sculptor Chakaia Booker has been selected as the second artist for the New York Avenue Sculpture Project, the only public art space featuring changing installations of contemporary works by women artists. Organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), the New York Avenue Sculpture Project is a collaboration between the museum, the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID), the DC Office of Planning and other local agencies.

Based in New York, Booker (American, born 1953) works almost exclusively with recycled tires that are cut, shaped and folded, then woven into dynamic, highly textured sculptures. Her large-scale expressive works fuse ecological concerns with explorations of racial and economic difference, globalization, and gender.

Booker has produced acclaimed shows in sculpture parks including Storm King in New York and Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, and has been included in important museum and gallery exhibitions including the 2000 Whitney Biennial.

The installation comprises four sculptures including a new work that Booker is creating specifically for the project. The sculptures, located in the median of New York Avenue between 12h and 13th Streets, N.W., will be dedicated on International Women’s Day, Thursday, March 8, 2012 and remain on view through 2014.