Dog-watching, already one of Central Park’s top attractions, is about to get a little more enticing.
This fall, the Paris-born, New York–based artist Camille Henrot will install 12 large-scale dog sculptures in Doris C. Freedman Plaza, a very visible spot at the southwest corner of the New York park. The Public Art Fund project will be on view for a full year, from September 9 through August 29, 2027.
Henrot’s “Dogs” will be made of bronze, stone, steel, and concrete, and will be based on previous artworks of hers. One thinks of the variety of dog sculptures on view in “A Number of Things,” her 2025 show at Hauser & Wirth. That exhibition was chock-full of charming canine friends with evocative names, like Noé (made out of sheets of steel, sitting on his haunches), Francesco (a French bulldog carved out of wood), and Helix (an adorable pup with stroller wheels for back legs). There was also Margaret, Sammy, and Richelieu.
Camille Henrot: Erec, 2026.
Photo Amedeo Benestante/©ADAGP Camille Henrot/Courtesy Mennour, Hauser & Wirth, and Esther Schipper
“Each of Henrot’s sculptures has its own unique presence, mirroring the many shapes, sizes, and temperaments of the canine companions she encounters throughout her Upper West Side neighborhood,” said Melanie Kress, senior curator at the Public Art Fund, in a statement.
Henrot’s “pleasantly strange” work has long explored issues related to the body, the natural world, technology, and caretaking. She is best known as a sculptor, but has also made paintings (many of which depict animals), videos (such as Grosse Fatigue, from 2013, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale), and even ikebana flower arrangements.
Her most recent video, In the Veins, about caretaking during climate crisis, premiered in the New Museum’s “New Humans” exhibition. In an interview with Art in America, Henrot talked about why humans are able to cherish domesticated pets like cats and dogs, but not other species, and how dogs, like children, can be “messy and kind of punk.”
