‘To Reflect Everything’ by Artist Ryan Van Der Hout in Washington Sq. Park

Join us on Jan. 26 at 3 p.m. in Garibaldi Plaza at Washington Square Park to celebrate the emerging queer interdisciplinary artist Ryan Van Der Hout as they unveil their installation, “To Reflect Everything.” This marks the first public art installation in Washington Square Park since Ai Weiwei’s exhibit, “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” in 2017.

This 7-foot mirrored sculpture combines a disco ball’s reflective facets with a satellite’s sleek form, inviting viewers to explore themes of reflection, connection, and transformation. The opening event will feature “untitled (to orbit narcissus),” a site-specific performance by artist and scholar gino romero. romero’s performance draws on José Esteban Muñoz’s interpretation of the Narcissus myth, which Muñoz describes as revealing a new order that unites humanity with the divine and with nature. Building on this queer reading, the performance employs reflection and refraction as an invitation for dialogue with “To Reflect Everything” It fragments both the performer and the audience, exploring new ways of seeing and being. 

“To Reflect Everything” will be on view until March 30th, 2025. This installation is described by curator Renata Azevedo Moreira “a radical attempt to queer simple definitions, functions, actions, and value” transforming public space into a site where multiple realities coexist.

About the performer

gino romero (b. 1997, Miami) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores ritual, memory, and transformation. They are an ordained minister, archivist, and educator. romero considers growing up Queer and Trans in Latinx spaces as part of their education. Romero holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Studio Art from Florida State University. 

Their work has been exhibited internationally at venues, including Phyllis Strauss Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts (Tallahassee), 621 Gallery, Also Gallery, Grace Exhibition Space, SoMad Gallery, Rosekill Art Farm, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, and the Old Stone House. Their work is part of the collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Harvard University, University of Southern California (USC), and University of Toronto. 

www.ginoromero.com

About the Artist:

Ryan Van Der Hout is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto and New York City, exploring material processes to navigate states of being such as transformation, undoing, and queer identity. Their work spans photography, public art, and sculpture, consistently using reflection and fragmentation to examine how we construct meaning. Van Der Hout has exhibited across Canada and internationally, with recent exhibitions including Mending Shards at United Contemporary (Toronto, 2024) and selection as a primary site for Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2023. 

Van Der Hout’s work has been widely featured in publications including The Huffington Post, Vogue Italia, Fortune MagazineLarry’s’s List, CBC, PhotoEd Magazine, Reader’s Digest. He has exhibited across Canada, The United Kingdom, and New York, most notably in the Art Gallery Ontario’s Collectors Series, as part of a Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival primary exhibitions, and in The Magent Foundation’s Flash Forward festival. They have created public art for the City of Toronto, Toronto Archives, The TTC, Nuit Blanch,e and Pemberton Developments. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery awarded van Der Hout the Emerging Artist Award and has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council. They have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Metropolitan University and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons at The New School. 

www.ryanvanderhout.com