The Multi-Site, Mostly Outdoors 'Rockaway!' Art Exhibition Runs Until Labor Day

Nobody wants to think about it, but Labor Day is around the corner, and that means one thing: It’s time to head to the peninsula to check out the large-scale, multi-site, mostly outdoor art installation Rockaway! before it ends. This free, summer-long display celebrates the reopening of Fort Tilden, a former U.S. Army base in the Gateway National Recreation Area that sustained severe damage during Hurricane Sandy. Visitors can peruse photographs taken by punk rocker Patti Smith, a gallery dedicated to Walt Whitman that includes books of his poetry, and nest sculptures by Adrián Villar Rojas (above). Installed in several locations, these nests invite local birds to inhabit them. Other components include The Forty Piece Motet by Janet Cardiff (first photo below), a spatialized adaptation of a sacred 16th-century motet that’s in the former military chapel, and a mutli-genre collaboration with the Honolulu Biennial at the newly restored Rockaway Beach Surf Club on Beach 87th Street. Rockaway! — a collaboration between the Rockaway Artists Alliance, the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, the National Park Service, the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, and Smith — also showcases Fort Tilden’s natural and historical beauty.

For more information on venues and times and four more photos, go to the jump page.

Details: Rockaway!, Fort Tilden, Gateway National Recreation Area, free, runs until September 1st, gallery hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, noon to 6 pm. The Surf Club exhibit is also open to the public free of charge Monday to Friday, noon to midnight; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am to midnight. The Forty Piece Motet by Janet Cardiff will be open through August 17th only.

The Forty Piece Motet by Janet Cardiff

The Forty Part Motet Site

A piece by Patti Smith

Fort Tilden

Photos: MoMA PS 1