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New York’s beaches may be entering their end-of-summer era, but one stretch of Rockaway Beach is about to become a sprawling (and extremely temporary) outdoor art gallery.
Creative Time is reviving its Sandcastle Competition on Sunday, September 13, marking the first edition of the event since 2013. From 1pm to 4pm, a lineup of contemporary artists will descend on the shoreline at Beach 108th Street to transform ordinary sand into elaborate sculptures while spectators watch the creations rise from the beach.
And these won’t be your standard bucket-and-shovel castles: participating artists include Anthony Akinbola, Dean Millien, Rachel Rossin and Gabriela Ruiz, along with artistic duos Marianna Simnett and Eliza Douglas and Chiffon Thomas and Victoria Martinez. Canal Street Research Association will also compete.
Their work will be assessed by a judging panel that includes Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak, designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia, artist Pedro Reyes, Rockaway Hotel owner Michi Jigarjian and Problemista creator Julio Torres. Frankly, that is more cultural firepower than most structures made from wet sand ever receive.
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Creative Time first staged the competition at Rockaway Beach in 2012 and brought it back the following year. Those early editions featured artists including Tom Sachs, Snarkitecture, Dustin Yellin and Duke Riley, who used the familiar beach pastime as a jumping-off point for much more ambitious creations.
“As summer turns to fall, we’re thrilled to bring Creative Time’s Sandcastle Competition back to the Rockaways,” Creative Time executive director Jean Cooney said in a statement. “It’s an invitation for artists to take over one of New York City’s most iconic public spaces, experiment at a different scale and make something both ambitious and ephemeral.”
Once a winner has been crowned, the celebration will continue at The Rockaway Hotel. A ticketed Sandcastles Benefit Bash will run from 5pm to 7pm, with music from DJ Maya Margarita, drinks and a few promised surprises. Proceeds will support Creative Time’s artist-led public projects, a body of work that has included Tribute in Light, Kara Walker’s monumental sugar sphinx A Subtlety and Pedro Reyes’s political haunted house Doomocracy.
The competition offers one last excellent reason to head to the beach before fall properly arrives. Just don’t get too attached to any particular masterpiece.