Garden of Delights

Announcing ArtPort Kingston’s Grand Reopening with an Inaugural Public Art Exhibition

June 1 - October 5, 2025

Hours:  Weekends 12-5pm

> Location: ArtYard Kingston, 80 Smith Ave, Kingston, NY 12401 

> Artists: Kate Dodd, Ursula Endlicher, Erica Hauser, Kris Hauser, Sergey Jivetin, Natalya Khorover, Duncan Mackenzie, Eve Madalengoitia, Maria Markham, Ben Quesnel, Michael Rees, Margaret Roleke, Roxy Savage, Rosanna Scimeca, Suzan Shutan, Mary Ann Strandell, John Stowe, Rachel Urkowitz, and others.     

> ArtPort Kingston is thrilled to announce its grand re-opening with the launch of Garden of Delights, an  outdoor exhibition that invites visitors to wander through a living landscape of art and imagination.  Set against the backdrop of the concrete cityscape, art blooms from unexpected materials and narratives unfold under the canopy of creative transformation. Celebrating the intersection of art, horticulture, sustainability, and humanity’s place in the natural world. Everyone is an observer and participant in the garden, as elements shift and respond, prompting reflection on how we live, consume, and connect.

Garden of Delights is not just an art exhibition–it’s a living breathing environment where the refined elegance of a sculpture garden collides with the wild spirit of a botanical wonderland. Opening on June 1, the show invites visitors into an evolving landscape of interactive experiences, where repurposed materials, living matter, and bold artistic vision combine to create a space for personal reflection and communal gathering. Nestled within the urban terrain of Kingston’s midtown, Garden of Delights emerges as a vibrant oasis. Like the structures of the natural world, the artworks span across medium and scale: from monumental sculptures to delicate acrylic beetles, while bronze figures, sun reflectors, giant water sprinkler and a bubble machine animate the space, exploding the expectations of a sculpture garden. 

The artworks are not envisioned as static objects, but active agents of change. Sustainability and material exploration are central to the exhibition: upcycled, repurposed, and reclaimed materials serve as both medium and message. Interactive sculptures alongside multimedia performances bring the garden to life, while engaging the audience to reflect on pressing issues such as climate change, environmental racism, and humanity's inherent place in the natural world. A trellis woven from shotgun casings speaks to the cycles of violence and renewal, while the painting of a waterfall echoes art history and fragments evoke visions of regeneration through art practice. Visitors are invited to wander, linger, and connect with the evolving narrative woven between the artworks. In doing so, they become part of a story.

The exhibition will evolve in two stages: Seeding (Spring) and Blooming (Summer). Each of these phases will host distinct public offerings and a rotating exhibition of artworks, aligning with the various phases of transformation in the garden. Public programming will include regular performances, our annual Summer Film Series, and youth workshops that aim to foster ongoing public dialogue and local participation. The exhibition will have regular open hours on Saturdays & Sundays from 12-5PM through October. 

ThankS TO THE garden of delightS sponsors!

Flagpole Project 

OPENING: March 8, 2025, 3-5pm – ArtYard Kingston 

Celeste Fichter ‘Wind is in the Change’

ArtPort Kingston has invited artists, designers, makers, and thinkers to submit flag designs for our new Flagpole Project. Launching in Spring 2025, the Project will raise one original artist-made flag per month above ArtYard Kingston at 80 Smith Ave throughout 2025. Each new flag, raised in a communal ceremony, offers an opportunity to rethink the meaning and role of flags in contemporary society.

A flag is a powerful symbol–a human invention that serves both as a form of communication and a symbol of beauty, devotion, and reverence. As symbols of both unity and division, oneness and diversity, flags can evoke strong emotions, rally communities, and communicate ideas across vast distances. Historically, flags have represented nations, ideologies, and movements, but what do they mean to us now? How has their significance evolved? How might it continue to evolve over time? 

Run as an open-call, the program seeks designs and flag-like artworks that explore the potential of the flag as a means of communication at this present moment. Applicants were asked to respond to a number of prompts, including: How can the format be reinvented as a tool for connection rather than division? How can a flag transcend traditional symbols of territory, ownership, and conflict? Can a flag be used to unify diverse ideas, communities, and cultures? 

The project will launch on March 8, 2025 with an original flag design by inaugural artist Celeste Fichter (@celestefichter), and will be followed by the hoisting of a new flag per month throughout the year. Celeste Fichter’s Flag is a play on the phrase ‘change is in the wind’ that implies something new is coming our way. ‘Wind is in the Change’ suggests that the movement of the wind itself is the change. Part koan, part word play, the phrase on the flag can only be read when wind is present.

Follow @artportkingston on IG for more updates, and look out for future open-call opportunities to submit your flag design.

24/7 Gallery Presents…  

Musical Chairs 

An Installation by Felix Olivieri & Stefan Saffer 

Opening Reception: March 8, 2025, 3-5pm

“Chairs are about status, power and control. That’s why we like them.” 

– Colin McSwiggen, Academia Sinica

A collaborative exhibition from Kingston-based artists Felix Olivieri and Stefan Saffer, “Musical Chairs” is presented as the inaugural exhibition of ArtPort Kingston’s new 24/7 Gallery, which offers around-the-clock public access to rotating exhibitions via the Kingston art-center’s windowed foyer. 

“Musical Chairs” presents a spectacle of sculpture, light, sound, and movement. Empty chairs are floating in the gallery box, hanging from the ceiling and colliding with each other. The golden surface of the chairs reflects light through a thick fog which occasionally fills the space, disappearing and abstracting the installation. 

The installation’s three chairs represent, simultaneously, three different functions, positions, and social groups. From the chair’s perspective, any person taking a seat is represented by their buttocks, and all people are the same: the chair has no bias by which it ensures the support of its seat. Nevertheless, we have assigned, over centuries, different chair designs to different functions, ranks, and uses, starting with the throne. In his essay, “Against Chairs,” academic Colin McSwiggen writes “Not only are Chairs a health hazard, but they also have a problematic history that has inextricably tied them to our culture of status-obassed individualism.”

With “Musical Chairs,” the artists’ attempt to create a democratic view of the chairs based on their simple function stands (or hangs) in contrast to the hierarchical categorization by their users. The installation reflects this ongoing struggle for equality and power, while attempting to catalyze the impulse to rethink who we are by what chair we sit on–literally and figuratively–and who we want to sit at our table and why. 

The exhibition will open with a free, public reception, coinciding with the launch of ArtPort Kingston’s Flag Pole Project, on March 8, 3-5pm at ArtYard Kingston - 80 Smith Avenue, Kingston NY 12401. Artists will be present and light refreshments will be provided. All are welcome!

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