HYPERALLERGIC: Poignant Public Artwork Honors New Yorkers Lost to AIDS

Jim Hodges’s sculpture “Craig’s closet” sits in the heart of Greenwich Village, a neighborhood whose gay male residents were disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.

New York City’s AIDS Memorial Park has a new sculpture. Unveiled at the beginning of Pride Month on June 9, “Craig’s closet” (2023) by artist Jim Hodges sits in the center lawn of the Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle in Greenwich Village, where it will remain on view through May 2024.

A granite and painted bronze replica of a bedroom closet frozen in time, “Craig’s closet” is an intimate interior space brought outdoors that explores the intangible experiences and memories contained in material objects left behind: shirts and jackets on hangers; filled drawers and packed shelves; stacks of untouched books and folders; bags and boxes holding unknown treasures. Its solemn black color is a distinct contrast against the striking white of the park’s triangular monument and the facade of the Greenwich Village Lenox Hospital that peaks through the green tree foliage in the background. From the front, Hodges’s sculpture depicts a crowded closet coated in black full of minute details that each tell a story; from the back, these features are condensed into a monochromatic wall whose only details are the sunlight and shadows bouncing off its watery surface.