International HarborArts Outdoor Exhibition

Boston Harbor Shipyard (256 Marginal Street, East Boston)

By Gretchen Schneider AIA, LEED AP

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It’s a compelling proposition: Use large outdoor art at the spot where land and water meet to bring attention to ocean issues. HarborArts first made a splash with the 40-foot metal cod that floated across Boston Harbor last year. The giant fish now rests on a roof in East Boston’s Boston Harbor Shipyard, along with works by more than 30 other artists from around the world, all in free public view.

The Shipyard is one of the last remnants of Boston’s true working waterfront. Now it’s Boston’s newest sculpture garden, too.

The pieces—some beautiful, some wonderfully tactile—tease viewers to look more closely. But because most were not designed for this site—they’re on loan from the artists—there is a disconnect between object and place that is at times distracting; the installation doesn’t have the visual or intellectual resonance that it might. Yet. With new works rotating in, HarborArts could mature to something extraordinary.

Gretchen Schneider AIA, LEED AP is the principal of Schneider Studio in Boston and lives near the Shipyard.

Apogee by Karl Saliter, 2007. Photo by Christina Lanzl, UrbanArts.