Must-See Sculpture Park Shows

August 5, 2021

A round-up of this year’s best outdoor sculpture exhibitions.

“Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church and our Contemporary Moment”
Olana State Historic Site and Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Catskill and Hudson, New York
Through October 31, 2021

Presented jointly at the Thomas Cole Site in Catskill and Frederic Church’s Olana in Hudson, “Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church and our Contemporary Moment” is a collaborative exhibition inspired by the work of painter Martin Johnson Heade and featuring works by contemporary artists including Nick Cave, Mark Dion, Jeffrey Gibson, Paula Hayes, Patrick Jacobs, Maya Lin, Dana Sherwood, Jean Shin, Rachel Sussman, and Vik Muniz. The show features 16 paintings by Heade (1819–1904) from his “Gems of Brazil” series (1863–64), which he created on the basis of an 1863 expedition to Brazil to study hummingbirds and their habitats, as well as paintings and natural specimen collections by Cole and Church, plus works by Emily Cole and Isabel Charlotte Church (their daughters). “Cross Pollination” creates a call-and-response between these 19th- and 21st-century American artists, all of whom engage in questions surrounding biodiversity and environmental sustainability.