Michele Oka Doner’s “Talisman: A Sacred Grove” Opening Celebration in NYC

Michele Oka Doner’s “Talisman: A Sacred Grove” Opening Celebration in NYC

On March 9, a special Talisman Art celebration took place at the historic Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Hosted by philanthropists Elihu Rose and Barbara Tober, the evening gathered artists, patrons, and cultural leaders to celebrate the major Park Avenue Installation: “Talisman: A Sacred Grove” a striking new public artwork by American artist & author Michele Oka Doner.

Over 150 guests were welcomed by Michele Oka Doner’s sons, Jordan Doner and Jeremy Doner, along with her husband, Fred Doner. Attendees included HRH Prince Sultan bin Fahad bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz and Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, Paola Antonelli, Carrie Rebora Barratt, Laurie Beckelman, Cora Cahan, Amy Cappellazzo, Kyle DeWoody, Layla Diba, Tiffany Dubin, Jane Farhi and James Barron, Joanna Fisher, Anthony Haden-Guest, Rachel Hovnanian, Yue-Sai Kan and Alan Pollack, Harold Koda and Alan Kornberg, Irina and Andres Serrano, Betsy Sussler and Ruben. Guests gathered inside the Armory for an intimate evening of conversation and celebration honoring Doner’s visionary work and the spirit of creativity that continues to shape New York’s cultural landscape.

The discussion offered guests a deeper look into Doner’s inspiration and the symbolism behind A Sacred Grove, now installed along the Park Avenue Mall across from the Armory. Blending reflections on nature, mythology, and the urban environment, the conversation highlighted the enduring dialogue between art, place, and community in New York City. with Michele Oka Doner and Micky Wolfson (founder of The Wolfsonian Museum) & author Kai Bird. “I wanted to bring back the primeval forest that used to exist here in New York,” said Oka Doner. “It’s an organic thing, it’s alive, and it will change as the city does.” “Michele Oka Doner’s objects demand participation & dialogue,” added Wolfson. “These talismans are a sort of new language through her, which is the intimate element of her creations.

After the conversation, guests walked across the street to the debuted Talisman, A Sacred Grove installation with a natural grove of twenty-one different species of trees that support three hundred hand-formed heads on the mall between East 66th and East 67th Streets in front of the Park Avenue Armory. It is the first sculptural installation of its kind installed under the Fund for Park Avenue in its twenty-six-year history.
Oka Doner’s work can be found in collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Chicago Art Institute, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (Smithsonian), the Louvre – Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, as well as in museum collections at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Oxford, among numerous others nationally and internationally.

After taking in the beauty of the installation with flowing lights shimmering against the dramatic New York City backdrop—guests made their way back inside the historic Park Avenue Armory, entering the building’s ornate Tiffany Room. There, glasses of champagne circulated as art lovers gathered around a dozen lavish seafood towers, generously provided by restaurateur Keith McNally of the celebrated Balthazar. The elegant setting offered the perfect pause to reflect on the evening and the luminous new work by Michele Oka Doner, bringing together art, conversation, and New York’s timeless cultural energy.

The project was commissioned by The Sculpture Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue, with additional support from The Lionheart Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and Barbara Tober’s Acronym Fund.

The art work: The talismans is drawn from folklore and mythic forms that hang from trees native to the area and will be visible especially after dark, when fiber-optic lights illuminate them. Over nine months, the vegetation will evolve, transforming the iconic boulevard with a poetic reflection on nature, myth, and the enduring relationship between the urban landscape and the natural world. The talismans range from five inches to a foot and a half, handcrafted out of pulp and organic materials. Placed on a raised platform, planted with bushes, foliage, and twenty-five trees native to Manhattan, sourced from Long Island and Upstate New York, with a dedicated “water nanny” to maintain them. The installation took four days to complete, involving cranes and a team of ten.