LUCIA ZEZZA | DATE 5/24/2025

Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore presents a 3-book tribute to Flaco the Central Park Owl

Saturday, May 24, at 4 PM EST, Artbook at MoMA PS1 Bookstore presents Heide Hatry, Leonard Schwartz, Jonathan Hollingsworth and David Gessnera for a triple book launch in tribute to Flaco, the Central Park Owl.

Event livestreamed on Instagram at @artbookps1.

Please RSVP for the event and pre-order a signed copy here.

FLACOFOLIO
Micro-essays by poet Leonard Schwartz and assemblages by artist Heide Hatry

FLACO
Art and photo book edited by Jonathan Hollingsworth with a foreward by Carl Safina

THE BOOK OF FLACO
Nature book chronicling Flaco’s year in the city by writer David Gessner

Flaco was a Eurasian Eagle Owl, one of the largest and most powerful owls in the world, known for its striking orange eyes, powerful build, and deep, resonant hoot. Females can grow to a total length of 30 in, with a wingspan of 6 feet 2 inches. Flaco was held in an enclosure the size of a bus stop in the Temperate Territory part of the Central Park Zoo for 12 years. On February 2, 2023, Flaco escaped after an unknown person or persons cut open his cage. Released into New York City, Flaco became more than a fugitive: he became a myth in motion, carving silent arcs above the skyline, roosting in Gothic towers, surviving in defiance of expert predictions. After living one year in Central Park Flaco was found dead at the base of a building having flown into a window. Flaco’s passing deeply affected many, and his story left a significant impact. Hundreds flocked to Central Park to leave offerings in memorial. This event will present three of the numerous books that have been created to honor his memory.

Heide Hatry is an NYC-based German artist, former rare bookseller, and best known for her work employing animal parts or other discarded, disdained, or “taboo” materials. She has curated numerous exhibitions (including "One of a Kind", Unique Artists' Books) and has shown her work at museums and galleries all over the world. She has produced more than 250 artist’s books, edited dozens of art catalogues, and four of her larger projects (Skin, Heads and Tales, Not a Rose, and Icons in Ash) have been documented in monographic books. She is the founder of ICONS IN ASH, a social art project devoted to helping people contend with loss, and of POLAR BEAR FEST, a Lumbung art initiative created to foster community while fighting the climate crisis.

Leonard Schwartz is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Actualities I: Transparent, to the Stone, Actualities II and III: Two Burned Hotels, and Actualities IV/V Comic Earth (2021, 2022, 2023, Goats & Compasses). He edited and co-translated Benjamin Fondane’s Cine-Poems and Other with New York Review Books.

Jonathan Hollingsworth is a New York City-based writer, photographer, editor and publishing veteran whose recent publications include FLACO: The Owl Who Escaped Captivity and Won the Hearts of the World and Call Me Timothee: The Timothee Chalamet Look-Alike Competition, both from Blurring Books. Previous monographs include Left Behind: Life and Death Along the U.S. Border (Dewi Lewis, UK) and What We Think Now: Young People’s Response to the War in Iraq. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times Magazine (London), BBC News Magazine, among others. He has had solo exhibitions at the UC Riverside / California Museum of Photography, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Center for Photography at Woodstock. He currently lives in Brooklyn with a ginger cat and orange Naugahyde couch.

David Gessner is the author of thirteen books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including the New York Times bestselling All the Wild That Remains. Gessner is a professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington where he also founded the literary magazine Ecotone. His own magazine publications include pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Orion, and many other magazines. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show The Call of the Wild.


Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore
Triple Book Launch
A Tribute to Flaco the Central Park Owl
Saturday, May 24, at 4 PM EST
22-25 Jackson Ave (at 46th Ave.)
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 433-1088
RSVP and pre-order a signed book here.