Public Art
Public Art
Public Art
Public Art
Woody De Othello: Guardian Spirit presented by Public Art Fund
May 5, 2026 – March 8, 2027
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1 and Manhattan Bridge View at the intersection of Washington Street and Plymouth Street
For his first solo outdoor exhibition in New York City, Woody De Othello (b. 1991, Miami, Florida) presents Guardian Spirit, comprising four recent large-scale bronzes and three new totemic redwood sculptures. This exhibition highlights the artist’s ongoing exploration of nkisi—ritual objects from Western and Central Africa that embody spiritual presences and channel protective or healing forces. Othello approaches sculpture making through a tender focus on the world around us, highlighting the emotional force behind the objects and rituals that shape our daily lives.
Each work showcases Othello’s sculptural language, whereby everyday objects become extensions of intimate actions. In thought in mind, an enlarged phone and comb suggest these quotidian objects’ outsized importance: how something as fleeting as a phone call can change the course of our lives. Communication is a recurring theme of the exhibition. Capacity, inner knowing, and Involution feature trumpet horn-shaped appendages merging with ears and hands to suggest connections between sensation and emotion, mirroring nkisi, which unify the physical and spiritual realms. Othello hand carved three totems with symbolic reliefs: outstretched hands for compassion, kneeling figures for reverence, ears for listening and birds for freedom. Each gesture blends into the next, evoking the shifting ways we experience emotion, memory, and consciousness.
Woody De Othello: Guardian Spirit is curated by Public Art Fund Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand. Learn more at publicartfund.org.
