Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn

Tanda Francis

Sometimes the site of an artist’s work really amplifies the work itself . This is especially true of Tanda Francis’s “Adorn Me.” Fort Greene Park is the socioeconomic and racial dividing line of its neighborhood, with one side reflecting whiteness and affluence far more than the other. Ms. Francis installed her bust featuring three adjoining African faces where it would “speak directly to the African-American community, which often goes unrepresented in public art,” she wrote on her website. Impossible to miss at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Washington Park, Ms. Francis’s piece is partially covered in African tribal markings, and its three sets of braids rise into a chandelier-like headdress. Through July 19.

Court Square Park, Queens

Matt Keegan

Marketing signs for newly-built apartment buildings are everywhere around Court Square Park in Long Island City, along with construction cranes and scaffolding, signaling that more units are on the way. Amid all this is Matt Keegan’s “what was & what is.” An off-site installation for the SculptureCenter, it consists of a rectangular glass box with one mirrored side. A horizontal scroll reads, “For a long time this neighborhood was about what will be, and now I think it’s about what is.” The quotation, from a developer, appeared in a 2017 New York Times article about the area’s “skyward” development, and exemplifies how real estate professionals sometimes see the city as being in service to new development . Through Aug. 18.