Jim Hodges: Craig’s closet
Overview
Sited within the New York City AIDS Memorial Park—in the shadow of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital and near pivotal sites of HIV/AIDS history—Craig’s closet by renowned artist Jim Hodges was a year-long public sculpture commissioned as part of the Memorial’s public art program and NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks initiative. Carved as a replica of a domestic bedroom closet in solid granite with additions in painted bronze, the sculpture invited passersby and visitors to forge personal connections between complex queer histories, intimacy, and collective memory.
Project Context & Curatorial Role
As Commissioner, I directed the project's fundraising and realization, site integration, and public presentation, placing Hodges’ monumental yet tender sculpture at the center of Greenwich Village’s public landscape.
A closet functions as a magical container—a highly curated repository of clothing, letters, photographs, and records that reveals our deepest desires, cares, and secrets. In Craig’s closet, time is frozen within granite and bronze, juxtaposing accumulated, stacked, or casually set-aside things to create an intimate sanctuary within open municipal space.
By translating a vulnerable, private interior space into weather-resistant, enduring granite and bronze, the work offers a poignant meditation on what gets preserved, what gets hidden, and how we honor the lost narratives of the epidemic through tangible public monuments.
Role: Commissioner
Date: June 2023—May 2024
Location: New York City AIDS Memorial, New York, NY
Artist: Jim Hodges
Image: © Jim Hodges, Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery; Photography by Daniel Greer
