Powerhouse Arts (PHA) will open The Ark, a group exhibition composed entirely of animal sculptures, on June 11, 2026, at its Gowanus, Brooklyn facility. The show marks the institution's first major public exhibition and inaugurates a year-round exhibitions program under the leadership of PHA President Eric Shiner, Vice President of Curatorial and Arts Programs Liz Munsell, and Associate Curator Constanza Valenzuela.

Originally presented in 2025 at The Church Sag Harbor, this expanded iteration has been curated by artist Eric Fischl together with Shiner and brings together 89 works by a multigenerational roster of artists. Shiner has added a number of new sculptural works to the Sag Harbor presentation for the Brooklyn showing.

The exhibition takes its name from the myth of the Deluge, deploying that narrative as a lens through which to examine contemporary environmental and social conditions. Animal sculpture serves throughout as both subject and metaphor, with works encountered at close range and often at monumental scale. Fischl has described the assembled works as capturing "an animal's inherent beauty, a physical manifestation of instinct and survival," noting that certain pieces approach truths in human life that are "best approached indirectly because they are rooted in the sublime."

The venue itself carries considerable weight in this context. PHA occupies a formerly derelict power station known as the "Batcave," situated on the Gowanus Canal — a designated Superfund site with a documented history of industrial pollution. Framing the exhibition within a broader narrative of environmental destruction, postindustrial transformation, and urban reinvention. Where the Sag Harbor presentation drew meaning from that town's history as a whaling port, the Brooklyn iteration is shaped by questions of urban ecology and the relationship between human and nonhuman life in a dense metropolitan setting.

For PHA, the exhibition also reflects the organisation's core commitment to fabrication and material exploration. As Shiner noted, the sculptural object functions here as evidence of artistic labor that is often invisible — a concern that sits at the centre of PHA's identity as a hub for technical workshop and artistry. The exhibition is, in that sense, as much about how things are made as what they represent.

Artists featured from the original Sag Harbor presentation include Joan Brown, Maurizio Cattelan, Jim Dine, Raven Halfmoon, William Kentridge, Sherrie Levine, Sarah Lucas, Allan McCollum, Bruce Nauman, Charles Ray, Susan Rothenberg, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kiki Smith, and Rosemarie Trockel, among others. Newly added artists for the Powerhouse Arts presentation include François-Xavier Lalanne, Canuppa Hanska Luger, Wangechi Mutu, Nohemí Pérez, Rob Pruitt, Toshio Sasaki, Nari Ward, and Celia Vásquez Yui, among others.

A complete checklist and programming schedule will be released in the coming weeks. Further information is available at powerhousearts.org