Livingston Manor receives $4.5 Million NY Forward Award with Catskill Art Space Sculpture Garden Cornerstone of Initiative
Livingston Manor receives $4.5 Million NY Forward Award with Catskill Art Space Sculpture Garden Cornerstone of Initiative
LIVINGSTON MANOR, NY — Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that the Hamlet of Livingston Manor in the Town of Rockland has been awarded $4.5 million through the NY Forward program, a state initiative designed to revitalize small downtown communities across New York. The Catskill Art Space outdoor sculpture garden has been identified as a key cornerstone of the Livingston Manor plan, reflecting the central role arts and culture play in the community's ongoing transformation.
As a nonprofit with a public-facing project, CAS's funding is not match dependent — a distinction that strengthens the organization's ability to bring the sculpture garden to life. The garden, envisioned as a freely accessible public landmark nestled beside the Willowemoc Creek, has been years in the making and is now closer to reality than ever. Allowing art to extend beyond the confines of gallery walls into our community’s democratic public spaces.
"This grant is a powerful affirmation of what we have long believed: that art, culture, and community are economic drivers," said Sally Wright, Executive Director of Catskill Art Space. "The CAS sculpture garden will be a lasting and freely accessible landmark for residents and visitors alike. This moment belongs to all of us."
Governor Hochul specifically cited Livingston Manor's creative identity in her announcement: "Anyone who's spent time in Livingston Manor knows why people are drawn to it. It's the creative vibe, the beautiful scenery, the main street that looks like a postcard... This investment will help Livingston Manor remain unmistakably itself, but also enhancing that even more."
Livingston Manor's selection is a testament to the community's remarkable reinvention. At the confluence of the Willowemoc Creek and Little Beaverkill, the hamlet has transformed from a town once sustained by logging, tanning, and the Catskills' famed resort industry into a thriving destination for arts, outdoor recreation, and small business innovation. Over the past decade, more than $38 million in public and private investment has helped spark a new chapter of revitalization. Today, Livingston Manor's walkable Main Street blends historic storefronts with galleries, craft breweries, designer boutiques, and farm-to-table restaurants that attract visitors from across the region.
Livingston Manor joins Yonkers ($10 million) and Ellenville ($4.5 million) as a Mid Hudson Region NY Forward recipient, receiving the same award as Ellenville despite being a significantly smaller community.
Through NY Forward, Livingston Manor will invest in housing, infrastructure, and public spaces that strengthen its walkable downtown and support sustainable, inclusive growth, guided by community input and a deep respect for its natural surroundings.
Long-term Installations
Following a major renovation and expansion, Catskill Art Space reopened in October 2022 with a long-term presentation of James Turrell’s Avaar (1982) in a custom-built gallery on the building’s second floor. A room-sized installation, Avaar is an important example of the artist’s early, wall-based “aperture” works, which function by creating two areas within a room. There is a “viewing space,” where one stands to see and experience the work, and a “sensing space,” which is an ambiguously defined area of diffused light. Avaar is one of the rare examples of Turrell’s aperture works to make use of white lighting only; no colors will be present in the installation. This work is in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, which has granted CAS a special long-term loan to exhibit the work. The presentation at CAS marks the first time the work has been shown since the 1970s, giving audiences from the Catskills and beyond the rare opportunity to experience a major Turrell work that has not been seen in nearly five decades.
On the second floor’s central landing, Sol LeWitt’s vibrant Wall Drawing #992 unfolds in three sections, each consisting of 10,000 straight lines drawn in color marker, to create a mesmerizing arrangement of primary colors. On the fourth wall, presenting LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #991, straight, arced, and organic lines will encompass the wall in black marker and pencil. The conceptual, minimalist artist conceived guidelines for his two-dimensional works to be drawn directly on the wall. Much like Turrell’s Avaar, the LeWitt works were realized for CAS’s space; in this instance, they are generously loaned by the artist’s estate. This work was overseen by a draftsperson, who determines the length and placement of the lines, and executed by five artists local to the area over nearly two weeks.
The performance space on CAS’s second floor hosts British sculptor Francis Cape’s A Gathering of Utopian Benches—an installation of meticulous copies of benches built and used by communal societies. Cape’s installations have always argued that design and craft express belief. Utopian Benches, which has toured extensively throughout the US, was built from poplar grown near Cape’s studio in Narrowsburg, NY. To be considered both as contemporary sculpture as well as furniture that visitors can actively use, the benches reference the societies who first used them, inviting visitors to utilize them for exchange, discourse, and community. The installation, which is meant to be used by visitors both for contemplation and may be used for performance seating, overlooks an expansive wall of windows onto the Willowemoc Creek.
Ellen Brooks activates an intimate gallery space, framed by a partially open staircase, with Hang (2022), an installation suspending over 30 feet of scrolls of film negatives from the ceiling. The artist hangs transparencies and negatives in all formats and from clips attached to the ceiling, mimicking the practice of film photography. Hanging negatives reference the surrounding natural landscaping, evoking a cascading waterfall with coils of film collecting on the ground floor gallery.
About Catskill Art Space
Catskill Art Space (CAS) explores contemporary art practices of emerging and established artists. Through exhibitions, performances, classes, lectures, and screenings, CAS fosters creative community in the Catskills.
Established as Catskill Art Society in 1971, CAS reopened in October 2022 as Catskill Art Space following a major renovation and expansion of its multi-arts center, located in the picturesque hamlet of Livingston Manor in the Western Catskills. CAS presents a rotating slate of exhibitions, performances and other events featuring national and regional talents, alongside long-term installations of works by James Turrell, Sol LeWitt, Francis Cape, and Ellen Brooks. Learn more at catskillartspace.org.