At Central Park's Doris C. Freedman Plaza, NYC: Camille Henrot's Dogs Take Over the Entrance

A pack of dog sculptures now stands at the entrance to Central Park. Doris C. Freedman Plaza, at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue, is hosting Camille Henrot: Dogs, presented by Public Art Fund and on view through August 29, 2027. The show brings twelve large-scale dogs by the Paris-born, New York-based artist, cast and carved in bronze, stone, steel and concrete, materials chosen to stand up to the outdoors. It is free, and the plaza is open daily.

This is Henrot's first public exhibition in New York City. She builds on an existing series of dog sculptures and adds new works. Each piece grows out of a pile of references: Saul Steinberg drawings, Tex Avery cartoons, ancient Egyptian sculpture, dog show competitions and more. The group includes a white concrete dog, a white dog with a book on its back, and a dog silhouette cut out of a sheet of steel.

Henrot works across painting, drawing, film, installation and sculpture, and is interested in the invisible codes and ties that bind people as individuals and as members of society. Attachment, dependency and domestication led her to dogs, highly social animals and loyal companions. The exhibition is also a celebration of sculptural craft and style, reflecting her love for New York as a place of insistent individual expression.

Her film Grosse Fatigue won the Silver Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, and her work is in the collections of MoMA and the Guggenheim. In 2026 she premieres the film In The Veins at the New Museum. Melanie Kress, Public Art Fund's Senior Curator, organized the show. It makes an easy stop on a walk through the park's southeast corner or along Fifth Avenue.