Host Lucy Bohnsack is joined by artists Daniel Rothbart and Jeffrey Lependorf, and curator Melissa West to discuss Serpentine Sibyls, a floating sculptural installation by Rothbart which is on view through September 28th at the central pond and glasshouse located just south of the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art’s iconic Main Hall Gallery at Snug Harbor. More information is available at snug-harbor.org/newhousecenter.

The installation takes its title from the Sibyls—female prophetesses and oracles consulted in times of crisis. In an era marked by floods, heat waves, and wildfires, their presence resonates anew, reflecting the growing precarity of human life amid climate change and environmental loss. Rothbart’s sculptures evoke aquatic organisms and botanical forms from a distant past, conjuring life forms that feel at once primordial and speculative, alien yet strangely familiar. Rooted in deep history while gesturing toward an uncertain future, the works occupy a threshold between memory and prophecy. Situated within Snug Harbor’s historic landscape—a former refuge for sailors—the installation becomes a space for contemplation on where humanity has been and where it may be headed.

Once set afloat, Rothbart’s sculptures are animated by wind and water. Through a visual language of structure, light, buoyancy, and motion, they transform perceptions of the surrounding environment. Writing on a recent installation in the Hudson River, Richard Milazzo describes the works as “strangely inspired solar outcasts. Sublime or sublimated space junk—and I mean that kindly.” He continues: “One resembles an umbrella beckoning to an apocalyptic monsoon; another, a three-headed mythic creature veering off its cosmic course, resting in the quiet of this watery cul-de-sac; others, like a necklace of emeralds (or perhaps glowing plutonium), search for the throat of a Béatrice...” Curator Juan Puntes observes that “Rothbart’s immersive sculptures conjure fluid, futuristic life forms—reimagining our bond with the natural world.”

Tune in to the “Friday Afternoon Show with Lucy Bohnsack” for fun and quirky interviews with community leaders and local personalities.

Lucy Bohnsack is an artist and professional photographer, but over the course of her life she’s also been a forklift driver, tour guide, factory bottling line operator, seamstress, fabric designer, writer of technical instructions, tractor parts salesman, lead cashier at Claire’s Etc, and now host of the "Friday Afternoon Show" on the first Friday of every month. She lives in Catskill, NY with her husband and two children.