Times Square Arts  |   Design Times Square  |  Public Space Projects  | Opportunities for Artists

Times Square is one of the world's most renowned urban destinations. Its dazzling lights and teeming crowds offer an overwhelming sense of possibility. Having helped to make Times Square clean and safe, the Times Square Alliance is now working to nurture the creativity, energy and edge that are the essence of Times Square. For that reason, we are working with a variety of arts-based curatorial groups to bring public art projects to Times Square.   Times Square Arts, our pilot public art program, will incorporate diverse art elements into Times Square's streetscape, thereby expressing the area's uniqueness and enriching the pedestrian experience. 

SOMEWHERE I READ, by Arto Lindsay, November 1, 2009, Times Square. A Performa Commission for Performa 09 that was developed in collaboration with choreographer Lily Baldwin and architects Bureau V.   Photograph by Ka-Man Tse.

The deadline for Times Square Alliance Public Art Program Open Call (Fall 2010 – December 2012) has passed.  Applicants be notified of their status by September 2010.

Times Square Alliance Public Art Program
Seeks Letters of Interest for Art Projects and Art Events in 2010-2012
Due on July 15, 2010

The Times Square Alliance seeks letters of interest from arts organizations and artists across disciplines to present contemporary art projects and art events in the public spaces in and around Times Square. In a one-page letter, applicants should propose a single project or series for anytime between September 2010 and December 2012. Artists and arts organizations are encouraged to propose projects that address the unique nature and rich history of Times Square. Projects should be able to have an impact in a space defined by dynamic activity and continuous, competing visual stimuli. Organizations, curators and artists are encouraged to consider how their projects will change or effect the space during the presentation and how the 350,000 people here every day (as well millions of virtual viewers) will interact with the presentation. Public spaces to consider as locations for art projects and events include the new Broadway plazas and Duffy Square in Times Square and other public and private spaces throughout the Theater District, 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. Through its Public Art Program, the Times Square Alliance brings temporary high-quality, cutting-edge art and performance to Times Square’s public spaces, so that it is known globally as a place where ordinary people encounter authentic, ever-changing urban art in multiple forms and media.

For complete details on the application process and please visit www.timessquarenyc.org/arts/opencall

Kai McBride

Facing Florda: Self-Projecting Sunbelt Citizens

Christine Hill

A Consumer's Guide to Times Square Advertising

Kimsooja

Conditions of Anonymity

Günther Selichar

Who's Afraid of Blue, Red and Green?

People's Portrait Project

Times Square Through the Lens

enter gallery

Play Me, I'm Yours New York City 2010

SING FOR HOPE TO INSTALL 60 “STREET PIANOS”
THROUGHOUT NEW YORK CITY FROM JUNE 21 – JULY 5

Touring internationally since 2008, “Play Me, I’m Yours” is an artwork by artist Luke Jerram.

New York, NY

Sing for Hope, a public service organization for artists, announces that it is installing 60 pianos in the parks and public spaces of New York City’s five boroughs to be available to all who pass by from June 21 to July 5. “Many people never touch a piano, so we are bringing pianos to the people,” says Sing for Hope Co-Founding Director Camille Zamora. “This large-scale project is made possible by Sing for Hope’s ‘artist peace corps’ – professional artists from New York’s leading companies who volunteer in Sing for Hope’s outreach programs.” “Sing for Hope’s street piano project is our way of saying that the arts belong to everyone,” says Zamora’s fellow Co-Founding Director, Monica Yunus.

Sing for Hope’s plan to bring street pianos to New York began last year, when Zamora read an article in The New York Times about British artist Luke Jerram and his Play Me, I’m Yours street piano installation in London. Zamora and Yunus, best friends from Juilliard, felt that bringing street pianos to New York would be a great way to highlight Sing for Hope’s mission of making art available to all, and they contacted Jerram to initiate a partnership.

From 21st June – 5th July, 60 upright pianos will be distributed across New York City by Sing for Hope. Located in public parks, streets and plazas the pianos will be available for any member of the public to play and engage with. Following the artwork, the pianos will be donated to local schools and community groups.

“This project is not only about music. It's also a public art installation - similar to what happened with the painted cows, but like interactive cows!" says Sing for Hope Director of Operations Emily Walsh. Sing for Hope has arranged for “piano buddies” from local community organizations to take care of the 60 street pianos. After their two-week public residency, the pianos will be donated by Sing for Hope to local schools and hospitals, enriching New York’s communities for years to come.

In the words of Grammy Award Winner Alicia Keys, “I believe in the creative potential of New York City, and I applaud everything Sing for Hope does to develop that potential. This summer, Sing for Hope will create a beautiful and worthy moment for our city by bringing Play Me, I’m Yours to our city’s parks and public spaces. It’s things like this, the endless possibilities represented in these streets, that make me extra proud to be a New Yorker.”

Two of these pianos will be located right here in Times Square:

- Broadway Plaza between 41st-42nd Street (map)

- Broadway Plaza between 44th-45th Street (map)

For a list of all 60 pianos located in New York City, click here.

For more information about this project:

http://www.streetpianos.com/nyc2010/

http://singforhope.org/

To download a PDF of the map of 60 pianos

click here.

WORK BY THREE EMERGING ARTISTS

ROB CARTER, GRAEME PATTERSON, AND ALLISON SCHULNIK

PRESENTED BY CREATIVE TIME

AT 44 1/2
JUNE 15 – JULY 15, 2010

Allison Schulnik, Forest, 2009.

STOP-MOTION DREAMSCAPES FILL TIMES SQUARE

IN WORK BY THREE EMERGING VIDEO ARTISTS

From June 15–July 15, Creative Time will present one video each by emerging artists Rob Carter, Graeme Patterson, and Allison Schulnik. The artists freshly mine the possibilities of stop-motion animation, which has been used in filmmaking for over a century. By constructing detailed microcosms of paper and clay, the artists in this series transport us into the kinetic worlds of a city experiencing exponential growth, a discrete memory of youthful contention, and a strange, alien planet. Simultaneously, the analog—and extremely time- and labor-intensive—process by which these worlds are rendered comes into stark contrast with the overwhelmingly digital landscape of Times Square.

Made entirely from photographic images printed on paper, Rob Carter’s Metropolis (2008) is an abridged narrative history of the city of Charlotte, NC, one of the fastest growing cities in the country. It uses stop-motion video animation to physically manipulate aerial still images of the city (both real and fictional), creating a landscape in constant motion. The four-minute excerpt of video shown At 44 ½ depicts the city’s economic and architectural boom of the past 20 years, before extrapolating into the future. The final images remind us as of our civilization’s paper-thin existence, no matter how many monuments of steel, glass, and concrete we build. Set within the heart of another metropolis—New York—the animation asks us to consider the evolution, and eventual decay, of the sky-scraping hubris that surrounds us. Graeme Patterson’s Grudge Match (2009) is an elegantly simple and self-contained drama based on a memory from the artist’s early years, imbued with a subtle aura of fantasy and surrealism. Throughout the course of a single wrestling match, two miniature figures engage in a struggle that is simultaneously competitive and playful, a surprising amount of emotion visible in their Lilliputian postures, embraces, and headlocks. Rendered at 1/10 human scale, and then blown up to fill the monumental MTV screen, the video conflates a small, private moment—the bleachers in Patterson’s gymnasium are oddly empty—and the larger-than-life, public arena of Times Square. Forest (2009) follows Allison Schulnik’s hobo-clown protagonist, Long Hair Hobo, as he explores an unfamiliar, forested world, where he encounters an alternate-reality version of himself. Schulnik created the sets from material collected from the railroad tracks and woods near her studio, and imbued her characters with life by carefully sculpting their clay bodies one frame at a time. The trippy animation was used as the music video for the track “Ready, Able” by the Brooklyn-based band Grizzly Bear. Now, with the video’s presentation on the MTV screen, Long Hair Hobo peers with deep, expressive eyes out into the dense multitude of Times Square before beginning his strange journey.

VIEWING SCHEDULE AND DIRECTIONS
AT 44½ is located on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets. 
Take the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, S, or W to Times Square, or the B, D, F, or V to 42nd Street/Bryant Park

Click to view MTV'sinteractive map. 

A viewing schedule and directions to the screen are available at
http://www.creativetime.org/at445

ABOUT CREATIVE TIME

Since 1974, Creative Time has presented  innovative art in the public realm. 

Click here for more information about Creative Time.

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rob Carter (born 1976 in Worcester, UK; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) uses stopmotion animation and photographic re-constructions of architectural forms to bring to life historical narratives. His meticulous technique combines paper images and living plants to create imaginative retellings of urban development. Carter received his BFA from theRuskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University and his MFA from Hunter College. He has exhibited his work in the U.S. and abroad, including the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY; and the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome, Italy.

Graeme Patterson (born 1980 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; lives and works in Halifax, Nova Scotia) uses a self-taught approach to stop-motion animation to create miniature worlds based on personal memories and experiences. His practice engages universal themes of longing, loss, and recovery to transport the viewer into the playful yet somewhat eerie universe of the artist’s childhood. Patterson graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2002, and has had recent exhibitions at Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal, Canada; Art Gallery of Alberta, Canada; and Eli Klein Fine Art Gallery, New York, NY. He was also a finalist for the 2009 Sobey Art Award.

In her animations, Allison Schulnik (born 1978, San Diego, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) skillfully employs clay as a medium for conveying otherworldly forms and narratives. Simultaneously working in paint, sculpture, and animation (she is also a dancer and musician), Schulnik visualizes the adventures and metamorphoses of her many recurring characters, which include Long Hair Hobo, Rug Girl, Possum, and Klaus. She has had recent solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, and London, and her work is in the public collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; and Museé de Beaux Arts, Montreal, Canada, among others.

 

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CREATIVE TIME:

KEY TO THE CITY

by Paul Ramírez Jonas

A citywide public art project that allows every New Yorker and visitor to open spaces in all five boroughs. Presented by Creative Time in cooperation with the City of New York.

JUNE 3 - 27, 2010, New York City

Photograph by Paul Ramírez Jonas, courtesy the artist and Creative Time.

Key to the City by Paul Ramírez Jonas invites people to recognize each other with a key that leads them on a citywide scavenger hunt. This project is an opportunity to reflect on common space and shows that the city is a series of spaces that are locked or unlocked.

Key to the City is free and open to the public. 

The artist Paul Ramírez Jonas bestows the first key to Mayor Bloomberg in Times Square on June 3, 2010. 

Photograph by Ka-Man Tse.

The artist Paul Ramírez Jonas bestows a Key to the City passport to Mayor Bloomberg in Times Square on June 3, 2010.  Photograph by Ka-Man Tse.

June 3 - 27, 2010
Times Square, Broadway
Between 43rd & 44th Streets
Open:

M–F 2pm–8pm

Sat–Sun 12pm–8pm

CITYWIDE PUBLIC ART PROJECT ALLOWS EVERY NEW YORKER AND VISITOR TO
OPEN SPACES IN ALL FIVE BOROUGHS, DEBUTING JUNE 3
What if a government ceremony, like the bestowal of the key to the city, suddenly became a civic artwork? And rather than a formality between Mayor and visiting dignitary, you personally could award this key to anyone of your choosing. The Key to the City, by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, invites New Yorkers and visitors to our City to recognize each other with a key that will lead them on a citywide scavenger hunt of backdoors, front gates, community gardens, and cemeteries, and more. This Key to the City gives us an opportunity to reflect on common space and makes us aware that the city consists of a series of spaces that are locked or unlocked.

This summer, Creative Time is pleased to present Key to the City in cooperation with The City of New York. This project by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas reinvents the civic honor of bestowing keys on luminaries as a master key able to unlock more than 20 sites across New York City's five boroughs—such as locks within the Brooklyn Museum and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Members of the public will award thousands of these custom-made keys to each other in one-to-one ceremonies. The keys will be distributed from a kiosk in Times Square, open daily from June 3 to 27. “Key to the City is an innovative public art project that encourages New Yorkers to recognize each other with the quintessential symbol of civic honor—a key to the city,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Every day, millions of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world interact with one another in every neighborhood—on subways, at coffee shops, in parks—and artist Paul Ramírez Jonas’ idea celebrates those interactions by helping bring a tradition typically reserved for special occasions to our everyday lives. The keys will unlock sites in all five boroughs and will provide New Yorkers with a new way to experience some of our cultural organizations, city landmarks and small businesses.”

“With Key to the City, Paul Ramírez Jonas demonstrates, on a civic level, the urban delimitation between private and public. In essence, this simple exchange of a key allows one to gain access to a poetic collage extended across New York City,” says Nato Thompson, Chief Curator of Creative Time.

                                                 

Key to the City is a free public art project Presented by Creative Time in cooperation with the City of New York. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in California and raised in Honduras, Paul Ramírez Jonas currently lives, works, and teaches in New York City. In his practice, he challenges the boundaries between artwork and spectator by asking participants to contribute something—such as a penny, wish, or key—in order to fully engage with his projects. Key to the City is not the first time that Paul Ramírez Jonas has explored the creative possibilities of the key. In Mi Casa Su Casa (2005), he delivered a series of lectures about how space can be defined as either locked or unlocked, before inviting the audience to exchange keys with him and one another. The same year, he created a permanent work of public art, a small park called Taylor Square, for Cambridge, Massachusetts. 5,000 keys to the park’s gate were mailed to the homes closest to the commons, symbolizing a shared sense of ownership. Finally, Ramírez Jonas’ project Talisman (2008) for the 28th São Paulo Biennial asked visitors to engage in a public agreement, leaving behind a copy of one of their own keys in exchange for a key to the front door of the iconic Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavillion that housed the biennial. Key to the City expands his longstanding interest in the key not so much as an object, but a vehicle for exploring social contracts as they pertain to trust, access, and belonging.

For more information, and a full list of sites throughout all five boroughs: please visit: www.creativetime.org/keytocity

Top: The Louis Armstrong House Museum.

Photo by Paul Ramírez Jonas,

courtesy Creative Time.            

Bottom: PostNet.

Photo by Paul Ramírez Jonas,

courtesy Creative Time

Common Ground Community Presents: Art from The Times Square

255 West 43rd Street

July 8th - September 10th

Opening Reception: July 8th 5-7pm

Common Ground Community

The Tenant Services staff at The Times Square, a 652 single-occupancy residency for low-income and special needs adults in Midtown, invite you to a FREE art event at a historical landmark right in Times Square. Molly Kerwin, a Tenant Services Assistant, says "At our residence, we have a very successful Art Program in which tenants of all artistic levels participate and create beautiful and impressive works of art with the guidance of a contracted professional art instructor." The new works for the show, Summertime, will be displayed in the Mezzanine Gallery from July 8th through September 10th. Opening Reception: Thursday, July 8th from 5-7pm

For more information about Common Ground Community, please click here.

NYC DOT  Announces Winning Design For Temporary Plazas In Times Square

Molly Dilworth's “Cool Water, Hot Island”

Renderings showing the current treatment and the conceptual design

New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced the winning design for the temporary treatments that will refresh and revive the streetscape design currently in place at the Times Square pedestrian plazas while the agency moves forward with the separate design process for the area’s permanent capital reconstruction project. Submitted by Brooklyn-based artist Molly Dilworth, the selected design is composed of a graphical representation of NASA’s infrared satellite data of Manhattan. Titled “Cool Water, Hot Island,” the artist’s concept focuses on the urban heat-island effect, where cities tend to experience warmer temperatures than rural settings. The proposed design’s color palette of striking blues and light hues reflects more sunlight and absorbs less heat—improving the look of these popular pedestrian plazas while making them more comfortable places to sit. The colors and patterns evoke water, suggesting a river flowing through the center of Times Square, and they also provide a compelling visual counterpoint to the reds, oranges and yellows of the area’s signature marquees and billboards. 

DOT launched the design competition in partnership with the Times Square Alliance in March 2010, the first stage in the City’s effort to remake Times Square following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s decision to make the plazas permanent as part of the Green Light for Midtown project. The agency received 150 submissions for designs to replace the one currently installed at the five pedestrian plazas along Broadway from 47th to 42nd streets. The winning design was selected by a jury composed of representatives from the DOT, the Alliance, the Mayor’s Office and the Design Commission.

“This brings creativity and public art to the streets—literally,” said Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance. “It signals that the theater district— already known for creative expression indoors—is now a place for creative expression outdoors, in the most urban public space in the world.”

The new design is scheduled to be installed by the end of July.  The Alliance will monitor and maintain the temporary treatments for up to 18 months as the agency initiates plans for the design and construction of permanent plazas under the Department of Design and Construction’s Design and Construction Excellence program. As part of the longer-term project, DOT and DDC are working with a team of experts—from landscape professionals to architects to engineers—to design world-class plazas with ample seating, new paving and underground infrastructure able to accommodate and enhance the signature events that are staged at Times Square throughout the year. The project will also completely reconstruct the roadways in Times Square, which have not been structurally repaired in decades. An announcement is expected later this summer. Construction on the permanent plazas is expected in 2012.

READ FULL PRESS RELEASE

Click here. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

http://www.mollydilworth.com/

Maya Lin, What is Missing? (2010, single channel video, color, no sound, 4:13 min).

Image courtesy of What is Missing? Foundation.

CREATIVE TIME:

MAYA LIN: WHAT IS MISSING?
PRESENTED BY CREATIVE TIME AT MTV's 44 1/2
APRIL 15 – APRIL 30, 2010

From April 15–30, Creative Time will present multidisciplinary artist Maya Lin’s What Is Missing?, a series of four videos about mass extinction precipitated by the degradation of natural habitats at 44 1/2. There will be a special, expanded schedule of screenings on April 22 for Earth Day. Maya Lin is a participant in the Creative Time Global Residency Program, for which she has traveled to diverse parts of the world to connect with disappearing species for the What Is Missing? project.

The four videos presented At 44 ½ are part of an expansive project of the same name that is an urgent call to action intended to build awareness about disappearing species. What is Missing?, which Lin calls her “last memorial,” consists of site-specific media installations, a traveling art exhibition, a printed and digital book, and other forms, linked through the project’s website. By existing on in multiple forms and at multiple sites at once, the project challenges the notion that memorials must be singular objects. Through a broad network of collaborations with scientific institutions, environmental groups, writers, art institutions, filmmakers, photographers and artists, What is Missing? will ultimately emphasize what each individual can do to protect species and the habitats they depend on for survival.

What is Missing? is a collaborative project that involves the contributions of scientific institutions, environmental groups, writers, art institutions, filmmakers, photographers and artists. Media contributors include Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Geographic Society, ARKive and BBC Earth. Groups that are contributors, advisors and collaborators include California Academy of Sciences, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Conservation International, IUCN, the Field Museum, Freedom to Roam, NRDC, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Panthera, Oceana, Woodshole Oceanographic Institute, Yale School of Forestry, International League of Conservation Photographers and Wildlife Conservation Society.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Maya Lin is the world-renowned architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, and one of the most important public artists of this century. As a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale, Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a class project, then entered it in the largest design competition in American history. Her inspiring vision has since become the most-visited memorial in the nation's capital. Lin has since created a dozen other major works across the nation, including the Peace Chapel at Juniata College, the Women's Table at Yale University, and the Langston Hughes Library in Clinton, Tennessee. Maya Lin has also executed architectural projects for the Rockefeller Foundation and the new Federal Courthouse in Manhattan. Her life and work were detailed in the Academy Award-winning documentary film Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. Her work reflects a strong interest in the environment—a commitment that has led her to serve as an advisor on sustainable energy use and a Board Member of the National Resources Defense Council. In 2000, she published her first book: Boundaries. She describes it as a “visual and verbal sketchbook, where image can be seen as text and text is sometimes used as image.”

Click here for more information about Creative Time.

CREATIVE TIME:

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THREE HISTORIC FILMS
Light/Dark, 1977; Rest Energy, 1980; Dissolution, 1997
March 14–April 14, 2010

At 44 1/2, Creative Time's presentation of video art on MTV's outdoor, gilded screen located in the heart of New York City's Times Square, will showcase the work of groundbreaking performance artist Marina Abramović from March 14–April 14, 2010. Opening concurrently with her retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Creative Time's presentation includes Light/Dark (1977), Rest Energy (1980), and Dissolution (1997). Marina Ambramovi? is a performance artist whose groundbreaking work has influenced other artists for more than three decades.

"In her stunning work, Marina Abramović—along with her former collaborator, Ulay—has made powerful works that courageously probe conditions of gender, power, sexuality, war, and peace," said Anne Pasternak, President and Artistic Director of Creative Time. "Among the most influential artists of her time, it is exciting to show a small survey of her work on the MTV screen in Times Square, a site with contesting relationships between gender, commerce, and identity."

The first two films—Light/Dark and Rest Energy—feature German-born performance artist Ulay in interactions that explore the themes of tension and violence that carry throughout many of her time-based works. In Light/Dark, Abramović and Ulay kneel opposite each other against a dark background lit only by two sources of light. They take turns slapping each other at a quickening pace, resulting in mechanized rhythm that continues until Abramović ducks her head, evading the next slap and thus ending the cycle. In Rest/Energy, this cyclical repetition is replaced by an exercise in suspenseful stillness that begins when Abramović and Ulay stand opposite each other and slowly lean apart until they are held only by the tension of a loaded bow that is held between them—its arrow pointed directly at Abramović's heart. After four alarming minutes, they relax the tension on the bow, and Abramović is out of danger.  In Dissolution, wherein Abramović appears alone in a beautifully lit studio setting repeatedly lashing her bare back with a whip until she begins to tremble, the artist's focus returns to her ongoing exploration of the inextricable unity of body and mind. The title, Dissolution, references themes recurrent in Abramović's work, from violence and cultural memory, to testing the limits of her body in order to reach a higher state of consciousness.

The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, on view from March 14 to May 31, 2010, features the world premiere of a new work—The Artist Is Present (2010)—that she will perform daily throughout the run of the exhibition, for a total of over 700 hours. For more information, please visit www.moma.org.

The larger than life, high definition 44 1/2 screen is located on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets, directly across the street from MTV's offices and studio.


ABOUT THE ARTIST
Throughout her long career, Marina Abramović has employed the use of provocative performance as a vital form of visual art. Born in Belgrade, Yogoslavia, Marina Abramović became a member of a generation of pioneering performance artists in New York that emerged in the 1970s. Exploring the relationship between performer and audience, Abramović extends the physical and mental limits of her being in her performances. She has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in search for an emotional and spiritual transformation. Abramović has exhibited at major institutions throughout U.S. the world. Her work has also been included in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997) and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel, Germany (1977, 1982 and 1992). She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for her extraordinary video installation/performance piece Balkan Baroque‚ and in 2003 received the Bessie for The House with the Ocean View‚ a 12-day performance at Sean Kelly Gallery. In 2012, Abramović will open the Marina Abramović Institute in Hudson, NY to help preserve performance art and to help increase its audience.

Click here for more information about Creative Time.

Murals on construction fences

in Times Square

42nd Street Mural by Sofia Maldonado

March 2 - April 30, 2010

Located in Times Square 215 West 42nd Street Between 7th and 8th Avenue

92 Feet x 12 Feet Mural.  Acrylic on plywood mounted on construction fence

A Project of The Times Square Alliance & The Cuban Artist Fund

With Support by The Rockefeller Foundation and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Special thanks to “The New 42 Street.”

About the Artist

Sofia Maldonado was born in Puerto Rico in 1984 and moved to New York City in 2006 to attend the Master of Fine Arts program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her artwork draws on her Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage and her personal interests with fashion trends, the Latina female aesthetic, and various street culture elements such as skateboarding, graffiti, and music.

Maldonado has created many murals on abandoned buildings and skateboard parks. Last year she created a large mural for Real Art Ways in the Frog Hollow community Hartford, CT, and exhibited paintings at Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia) and Taller Puertorriqueño (Philadelphia). Outside of New York, she exhibited at Graffiti Gone Global during Art Basel (Miami), Girl by Girls at Spacejunk Gallery (France), Hybridity at the SOMArts Cultural Center (San Francisco), 10th Havana Biennial (Cuba), Graphopoli Urban Art Biennial (Puerto Rico).  She is represented by Magnan Metz Gallery in New York. For more information and to see more work, please visit www.sofiamaldonado.com as well as her blog.

About the Mural  

“My artwork intends and aims to represent brave, strong, and tough women who have to overcome struggles in their daily lives and sometimes impose themselves in a male-dominated world. In a post-feminist society these women can own their bodies in a powerful way without being depicted negatively. While a student in Puerto Rico, I painted murals in diverse boroughs of the island. I started to notice that in these communities, women were not being heard and/or represented in the media.

As an artist, I understand the importance of interacting with the locals before painting a mural in their neighborhood. My previous public art project in Hartford, Connecticut, commissioned by Real Art Ways, was placed in a Puerto Rican community. The community identified with my characters and did not feel offended. Women that worked at a nearby nail-art salon decorated characters in the mural by applying their aesthetic with acrylic nails designs, painting long eyelashes, glitter eye shadow, bright lipstick, tattooing their names and adorning their bodies with piercings. Through the Real Art Ways project, I had the opportunity to collaborate with women whose ideals of beauty are far from that of mainstream society. I was able to pick up on the life experiences that lead these women-- and others in similar positions--to their personal aesthetic choices, which I later intended to communicate with the New York audience in this mural piece commissioned by the Times Square Alliance.””

- From the Artist, Sofia Maldonado

Read more below: "Sofia Maldonado at Blank SL8."

Comments?  Please visit http://timessquarearts.wordpress.com/

Blank Sun by Alexandre Arrechea

March 2, 2010 - March 8, 2010

NASDAQ Billboard

Corner of 43rd Street and Broadway, New York, NY.

SCREENING TIMES:

+ U.S. Premiere:  March 2, 2010 at 7:50 – 8:00pm

+ Pre-Midnight Screenings for Art Fair Week: 11:50 PM, March 2 -March 8

+ Random Screenings of 30 Second Version: March 2010

 

A Project of The Times Square Alliance & The Cuban Artist Fund

With Support by The Rockefeller Foundation and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Special thanks to “Times Square Squared.”

NASDAQ Webcam at www.timesquare2.com

About the Artist

The interdisciplinary quality of Alexandre Arrechea’s work reveals a profound interest in the exploration of both public and domestic spaces. This quest has led him to produce several monumental projects like “Ciudad Transportable” (2000), “The Garden of Mistrust” (2003-2005) and “Perpetual Free Entrance” (2006), and "Black Sun" (2010). Alexandre Arrechea was born in Trinidad, Cuba, in 1970. He graduated from the “Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA)” in Havana in 1994. For twelve years he was a member of the art collective Los Carpinteros, until he left the group in July of 2003 to continue his career as a solo artist. Arrechea's work has been exhibited internationally. Arrechea is currently part of a collaborative exhibition Ideational Architectures (January 28 – April 18, 2010) with Mexican artist Alejandro Almanza Pereda at the LA Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park, California. The show is curated by Ernesto Pujol and explores the architecture of various urban landscapes.  Arrechea's show, “The Rules of Play” is currently on view at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Gutstein Gallery in Savannah. Crane Selects recently commissioned Arrechea for a solo exhibition at The Ice Box (Philadelphia) as part of the Philagrafika 2010 arts festival. The exhibit is curated by Anabelle Rodriguez and features a 20-foot tall basketball tree sculpture titled Orange Tree. Orange Tree was included as a special installation for Magnan Metz Gallery at the PULSE Art Fair (March 4-7, 2010).   Elasticity, Arrechea's solo show at Magnan Metz Gallery, runs from  April 15-May 22, 2010. 

Read a review of Alexandre Arrechea's "Black Sun" here. 

For more information, visit www.alexandrearrechea.com

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Kinetic Sound Sculpture

by David Ellis and Roberto Lange
March 2, 2010
Collaboration with Scope Art Fair

Physically animated and rhythmic New York City trash
Duffy Square at 46th and Broadway

About the Artists

David Ellis is an artist born into a family immersed in music. In his youth Ellis had little patience with piano lessons or reading sheet music. Instead he absorbed everything on The Super Mix, a Saturday night radio program broadcast from the nearby Fort Bragg military base. Each week a new cassette tape of emerging New York hip-hop found its way into the life of a child growing up in a log house in North Carolina. By the time Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 released The Message, Ellis was writing rhymes and banging out beats with his friends on the desks at school. Things have since become much louder.   Ellis' work continues to interpret music and sound. His paintings are often recorded in a form of digital time-lapse animation Ellis calls motion painting. Like jazz, these works provide Ellis with an opportunity to combine ideas with collaborators or work solo within a form that promotes improvisation and spontaneity. For a recent commission the artist painted a truck from sunup to sundown over five consecutive days. Ellis often stages events when exhibiting his motion paintings, inviting musicians, performers, and sound artists to interpret the work live. His motion painting, Paint on Trucks in a World in Need of Love was recently exhibited at MoMA.

Ellis' paintings are frequently improvised. He works directly on the walls of spaces that remain open to the public during installation and shares the making of the work with viewers. The experience is much like a band playing in front of a passing audience.  Ellis further explores sound with kinetic installations that produce analogue sequences in rhythm.  For more information, please visit www.davidellis.org

Roberto Carlos Lange is a sound artist born in South Florida and is the son of Ecuadorean immigrants. Growing up he was surrounded by tropical heat and hurricanes that represented the rich colors of sound and people living in South Florida. The sound of bass and late-night “peñas” in and around his house carved a deep foundation into his interest for sound and the things producing them.   The “pause-tape” gave birth to his first sounds and music. With whatever he could grab; guitars, tape-loops, hand claps and voice, Roberto was slowly revealing his way of hearing things. Roberto’s musical pieces are adjusted and aligned with the moment they exist in, they are constructed through improvised performances and accidental happenings. The music and sounds themselves have been over the years documented and compiled together by him and a few record labels. These “albums” are extensions of the after thought of what these songs do together as a group. The albums are based on themes that carry weight and maybe criticize an idea as an observation. For more information, please visit www.robertolange.com.

www.anonymousgallery.com

Stills from Easter Morning, 2008

CREATIVE TIME:

Mini-Retrospective of work by Bruce Conner

At 44 1/2
MTV Screen

February 1-28, 2010

FILM WORKS BY BRUCE CONNER

TEN SECOND FILM
1965, 16mm, b&w/silent, 10 seconds
Bruce Conner’s TEN SECOND FILM was commissioned by the 1965 New York Film Festival, and Conner intended for it to act as a television commercial and a prelude for the film programs in the theater. It is comprised of just ten film strips, each 24 frames long, of “countdown leader”—the universal cinematic signifier that announces the imminent start of a film, causing a hush to fall across the audience as it tics off the final, suspenseful seconds. With his agile re-editing, Conner manages to heighten the energy and exhilaration of this now-obsolete convention. This fervency was lost on the festival, however, which rejected the film for being “too fast.” It seems only fitting that TEN SECOND FILM ushers in this series of Conner’s work, shown on a screen of cinematic proportions amongst the breakneck speed of Times Square.

CROSSROADS
1976, 35mm, b&w/sound, 36 minutes
Original music by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley
On July 25, 1946, “Operation Crossroads” detonated Baker, the first underwater atomic bomb test, 90 feet under Bikini Atoll. The bomb forever altered the course of human events and it yielded a horrific vision of the apocalypse documented by 500 cameras on ships, on land, and in the air. Conner’s editing and composition of 27 individual shots from declassified U.S. Government footage of this event from the National Archives transforms nuclear holocaust into hypnotic abstraction, rendering a real-world tragedy amidst the corporate pitch of Times Square.

EASTER MORNING
2008, 8mm/Digital, color/sound, 10 minutes
Music: “In C” by Terry Riley
Departing from an inimitable film repertoire of tour-de-force editing technique, visual comedy, and apocalyptic themes, avant-garde master Bruce Conner envisioned EASTER MORNING (2008)—a metaphysical quest for renewal beyond the natural and ephemeral worlds—to be his last finished masterpiece. Keeping with his ritualistic reworking and re- imagining of his films, the image source originates from the 8mm Kodachrome footage of EASTER MORNING RAGA (1966), expanded in duration, gauge, and frame rate to devise an effect of visual transcendence. EASTER MORNING celebrates Conner’s reverence for experiential cinema, aleatoric sound, and discoveries within the realm of the spirit.

Throughout the month of February, Creative Time will present film works by Bruce Conner—the legendary multimedia artist best known for his work in film—on MTV's gilded, outdoor, HD screen in the heart of Times Square.  The films At 44 1/2 include TEN SECOND FILM, and excerpts from CROSSROADS and EASTER MORNING. The first was commissioned by the New York Film Festival and subsequently rejected for being “too fast”—it is, as the title implies, only ten seconds long. CROSSROADS is Conner’s gorgeous, hypnotic meditation on a atomic bomb explosion, and EASTER MORNING is the artist's final masterpiece. This rare opportunity to see Conner’s film work in New York City brings together film from over 40 years of  his output.

About the Artist

Bruce Conner (1933-2008) was born in Kansas but spent most of his active career in San Francisco, California. Conner worked in multiple mediums and often combined collage, prints, tapestries, and film in a single piece. He was one of the first to fuse popular music and video and collaborated in his later career with several musicians including Terry Riley and David Byrne. He often incorporated found footage into his films as a way of dealing with media and its effects on culture and society as a subject.

About Creative Time 44 1/2
Creative Time kicked off At 44 1/2 with the overwhelmingly successful presentation of Shallow by Malcolm McLaren in June 2008, and was followed by selections from Mark Tribe’s Port Huron Project; early work by the legendary Gilbert & George; a series curated by artist Marilyn Minter; the work of acclaimed artist Steve McQueen; and two series by young artists.

The high definition 44 1/2 screen is located on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets, directly across the street from MTV’s offices and studio. At 44 1/2 is part of Creative Time’s long history of presenting public art in Times Square.

Ice Heart

February 12 - 26, 2010 

Photograph by Björn Wallander

NEW YORK – Beginning on the morning of February 12, designers from Moorhead & Moorhead, leading a team of ice sculptors and engineers, will create a 10-foot tall Ice Heart built of masonry-scaled blocks of ice in Duffy Square at 46th Street and Broadway. By day, Ice Heart will provide a kaleidoscopic view of the Crossroads of the World, magnifying and distorting its colors and textures. By night, it will be a glowing beacon to celebrate the Valentine’s Day holiday. Moorhead & Moorhead’s Ice Heart won the invitational competition, juried by representatives from MoMA, The Queens Museum of Art, Performa, and NYC Parks, among others.   

The sculpture will be constructed by Okamoto Studio, a NYC-based artist collective founded by the father-son team of Takeo and Shintaro Okamoto, which has produced one-of-a-kind sculptures in ice that have been installed in venues from the Rockefeller Center to the runways of Fashion Week at Bryant Park.   The structural engineering firm is Robert Silman Associates, which has participated in arts related projects throughout New York City.  The lighting, a key element to bringing the sculpture alive in the evening, is by Tillett Lighting Design Inc., an award-winning firm specializing in the illumination of landscape

and public space.

For more information, go to www.timessquarenyc.org/valentine and www.theiceheart.com.

 

Do you have any photographs or video of the Ice Heart?

Upload and Tag-It!

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Watch them build this 10-foot-tall, 10,000 pound Ice Heart  and watch it melt.  Log onto our flickr page and our vimeo.

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Creative Time:

Bestué-Vives: Ralf and Jeanette

Sunday, February 14, 2010 at Noon 
Times Square, Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets

On February 14, perfectly timed for Valentine's Day, Ralf and Jeanette tells the entire story arc of a romantic relationship—all in about ten minutes. The play was performed in the pedestrian area of Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets at noon, with the play's dialogue projected above, in time with the action.
 
Through an intimate and fast-paced dialogue, the performance will reveal the array of emotions that occur throughout a romance. At the same time, it will reference the "temporal compression" that we often experience in Times Square, a place where the acceleration of the city is almost palpable and information is conveyed at rapid speeds through the digital billboards that blanket the streetscape.
 
For more information, go to  http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2010/BV/

Residencies at Blank SL8

 - Sofia Maldonado

 - Dexter Sinister

 - Tattfoo Tan

Tim Tompkins, Sofia Maldonado, Brian Whitton, Glenn Weiss     Sofia Maldonado painting in Blank SL8.

Sofia in front of one of the pieces at Blank SL8.                                    

Sofia Maldonado at BLANK SL8

January 8 - 26, 2010  

BLANK SL8
Storefront on the NW corner of 8th Avenue and 41st Street Port Authority Bus Terminal

625 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY

In her 19 days between January 8 – 26, 2010, Sofia Maldonado has painted a 92-feet mural depicting NYC women from her Puerto Rican – Cuban heritage. Flowing clouds of pastel colors provide the background for 12-foot tall images of beautiful and powerful women painted in an elaborate street-art style.  The painted plywood panels on display at BLANK SL8 will be installed on the outdoor construction fence at 219 West 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in the final week of February 2010.

The mural is a project of the Public Art Program of the Times Square Alliance in collaboration with the Cuban Artist Fund.  The BLANK SL8 storefront provides exhibition opportunities for artists and designers in fashion, visual arts and design arts. BLANK SL8 is a program of the Fashion Center and the Times Square Alliance with support from the Port Authority.  This project was made possible by support from The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.  Special thanks to the Fashion Center BID, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and The New 42nd Street, Inc.

For more information, please visit http://sofiamaldonado.com and http://fiaaas.blogspot.com/

Babelgum / Metropolis Prize:

Art Videos on the Times Square Screens

December 17, 2009 7-8 PM

Screens:

Clear Channel / CNN screen  (47th Street and Broadway),

MTV screen (Eastside of Broadway between 44th and 45th St.)

NewsCorporation / Panasonic screen (Southside of 43rd St. between Broadway & 7th Avenue)

 

Send me to the 'Lectric Chair  (06:51)

Guy Maddin and Isabella Rossellini

Click on thumbnail to watch video 

on Babelgum's website.

 

Winning art videos by: Jeorge Simas, Jason Eppink,

Jacopo Ceccarelli, Kindergarten, Davide Pepe,

Improv Everywhere, Sjors Vervoort, Hye Yeon Nam,

Christopher Coleman, Peter Vadocz,

Bruno Levy, Lucy Mclauchlan,

and Guy Maddin & Isabella Rossellini.

 

Wonderland (04:31)

Hye Yeon Nam

Click on thumbnail to view video on

Babelgum's website.

(Runner Up in the Grand Prize category

of the Metropolis Art Prize 2009)

"Space takes on multiple definitions. For me, I understand space as the sum of cultural and social forces that act on me. Through the space, my body feels all changes around me instantly and intimately. When I move from Korea to the United States, my body became a gauge that felt my displacement and recognized not only the conformity inflicted on me in the United States, but it also allowed me to deconstruct the rule from my hometown that I had taken for granted as normal. In my video piece, I attempt to convey the feeling of displacement and conformity by acting of walking. I perform walking forward and other people seem to be walking backward. However, I was walking backward in the real scene and I made it simply reversed. The space of being neither here following correct rule nor there following incorrect rule is precisely what I try to convey in this video. I finished NYC Times Square version and will make Portugal version next week. It will continue in several cities." 

  - Hye Yeon Nam

Loris Greaud

The Snorks, a Concert for Creatures [Trailer]

Times Square

Saturday, November 21 - Sunday, November 22, 11:59pm

The dark abyss of the ocean is the place on Earth that we know the least about. It is populated by photo-luminescent creatures that flicker to the rhythm of their environment’s sound frequencies to produce undersea “light-shows,” a behavior that inspired the concept behind French artist Loris Greaud’s ambitious new project, a Performa Premiere developed in collaboration with Performa, MIT Sea Grant College Program, and Carnegie Mellon. This ongoing project will launch on November 19, 2009, in Abu Dhabi with breathtaking fireworks designed by the internationally acclaimed pyrotechnicians Groupe F that will recreate the bioluminescence of deep-sea creatures, featuring the experimental hip hop group Antipop Consortium. Then, the New York premiere of the video of this elemental sky sculpture, which will be recorded in HD and 35 mm, will be presented on the Times Square LED screens of News Astrovision by Panasonic, NASDAQ and Thomson Reuters as part of the Performa 09 Biennial.

Loris Greaud is a cross-disciplinary artist whose fields of interest and activity range from architecture to quantum mechanics, from experimental film to electronic music (he has founded both a movie studio and a record label). His work, is oriented toward ideas and processes rather than finished forms, frequently involving collaborations with scientists or experts in various disciplines. Greaud was born in 1979 in Eaubonne, France, and currently lives and works in Paris. He has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Berlin, Milan, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris. In 2004, with architects Marc Dolger and Damien Ziakovic, he created DGZ Research, a multidisciplinary production studio to support his various projects. Greaud was awarded the Ricard Prize in 2005.

A Performa Premiere commissioned by Performa. Presented in cooperation with the Times Square Alliance. Supported by Etant Donnes, Panasonic of North America, NASDAQ, Thomson Reuters and TimesSquare2.

Interventions and Sculptures in Times Square

"NO"

- Santiago Sierra

Midnight, Saturday November 21 - Sunday November 22nd 10am

Parked in Broadway Plaza between 46th and 45th Street.

“NO” sculpture will be driven around New York City on Saturday November 21, and parked in Times Square on Saturday at midnight until Sunday Morning, November 22nd, at 10:00 AM.

Santiago Sierra
Staged throughout Europe, Canada, US, and Australia, Santiago Sierra’s NO consists of three touring trucks carrying an outsized three-dimensional sign of the exclamatory statement ‘NO.’ Envisaged as an international touring piece, its is key for Sierra that the work travels through Westernized continents. Sierra describes the project as “NO expresses a response to the universally recognizable imposition. NO is the clearest exercise of the right to dissent before reality as a whole, its chaos, its future and before the sensation of finding myself inside an airplane with a drunken captain on command.” For Sierra the open declaration “NO,” is to be filled like an empty bottle with the specific realities projected by the individual viewer, it refuses to be immediately understood, rather it nags at the mind, imploring the individual to decipher their own relation to immediate and global reality.  Fabricated in Toronto and presented in the Financial district of the city during Nuit Blanche the work will finally arrive after passing through New York at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, presented and spotlit in the gallery. The tour will be filmed and presented as if it were a traveling documentary of a rock tour.

 

B-Boys of Broadway:

The Best in Hip-Hop Dance returns to Times Square

November 14, 2009

The Hip-Hop Theater Festival (HHTF)’s mission is to present and support live events created by artists who stretch, invent and combine a variety of artistic forms, including theater, dance, spoken-word and live music. One of HHTF’s central goals is to help participating artists build coalitions, collaborations and networks with other artists and venues around the United States and the world.

In eight years HHTF has grown into one of the most influential outlets showcasing Hip-Hop performing arts in the country, featuring dance, theater, performance and music that is devoted to Hip-Hop and Urban culture, and has become a major contributor to the cultural life of New York City, Washington, DC. Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area.  For more information, visit www.hhtf.org.

Watch video:

 > Click here to watch video

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To view more photos,

check out our flickr page.

To upload images that you made of this event, go to our Tag-It Page.

Intonarumori: Live Performance of Futurist Instruments

November 11, 2009

Since 1977, visitors to Times Square have discovered the rich harmonic sound texture by artist Max Neuhaus that emerges from a large underground subway vault at 46th and Broadway.  As part of Performa 09, two contemporary musicians, Tony Conrad and Jennifer Walshe, will hold a 20 minute concert by playing newly reconstructed 1913 Futurist instruments with the Neuhaus’ sounds above the subway grates.  The performance was free and open to the public.  For more images of this performance, check out Times Square Public Art on Flickr. 

“Times Square” by Max Neuhaus has produced its deep, long tones from 1977 to 1992 and then reinstated by the DIA Arts Foundation in 2002 with support from the Times Square Alliance and MTA Arts in Transit.  Visitors may experience the sound work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

More information at http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/timessquare.

Max Neuhaus

Max Neuhaus worked in the fields of contemporary art and music for more than 40 years. He is credited with being the first to extend sound as a primary medium into the field of contemporary art. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris; and the Kunsthalle, Bern. It has also been included in Documenta VI (1977) and IX (1992), Kassel, and the Venice Biennale (1999). Several of Neuhaus's sound works are permanently installed in public venues in Europe. Times Square is Neuhaus's only public installation currently active in the United States.  Neuhaus died on February 3, 2009.  More information at http://www.max-neuhaus.info.

Musicians

Tony Conrad (b. Concord, MA, 1940) has worked in music composition, video, film, and performance since the early 1960s, and was involved in the early development of minimal music and underground cinema. He is best known for his violin playing with the Theatre of Eternal Music and for his 1966 film The Flicker, a key early work of the Structural Film movement. Conrad continues to show his video works and perform regularly in the U.S. and internationally.

Jennifer Walshe (b. Dublin, 1974) is a composer and vocalist whose works have been commissioned and performed all over the world. She is a creator of installation, orchestral, chamber and music theater works including the chamber opera for Barbie dolls XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!, commissioned by Wien Modern.

For more information is available at http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/Performa.html

And on Performa's website:  www.performa-arts.org.

Residencies at Blank SL8

DEXTER SINISTER:  THE FIRST/LAST NEWSPAPER
Commissioned by Performa

in partnership with the Times Square Alliance

and the Fashion Center BID
Curated by Defne Ayas with Virginie Bobin (Performa)

Open to the public

November 3rd to November 22

from 12-6 PM

At BLANK SL8

(located in the Port Authority Bus Terminal

at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 41st Street)

Commissioned by Performa for Performa 09, the third edition of the New York City-based biennial of visual art performance, publishing imprint Dexter Sinister will transform BLANK SL8 (pronounced “Blank Slate”)—a “pop-up” hosting space facing the New York Times building and adjacent to the Port Authority terminal—into a fully-functioning press office, writing, editing, designing, and distributing a broadsheet newspaper across the city. During the three weeks of the biennial, Dexter Sinister will invite writers, artists, and designers including Steve Rushton, Jan Verwoert, Rob Giampietro, Dan Fox, Walead Beshty, Jason Fulford, Sarah Gephart, Tamara Shopsin, Mariana Castillo Deball, and others to collaborate with The First/Last Newspaper, reflecting on the unstable condition of contemporary news and related medias.

Taking the form of a broadsheet—the original, large-format, single sided newspapers first produced in Europe in the 17th century—the six newspapers produced during the project will be distributed both in folded form and as flat sheets for public reading in various locations around the city. Under the editorial supervision of Dexter Sinister and the Performa curatorial team, The First/Last Newspaper office’s site at BLANK SL8 will be transformed into a hub of ongoing activity, including a series of screenings, lectures, and meetings, often related to other material presented as part of the Performa 09 biennial.

The newspaper workshop will act as a transparent, cybernetic model of the production of information and knowledge, allowing passersby to physically encounter the  production space.

Read Article in The New York Times by Holland Cotter

"Performa 09: Black and White and Read in the Port Authority"

Arto Lindsay: SOMEWHERE I READ

November 1, 2009 - 8:00pm

At 8:00 on the Red Steps in Duffy Square, acclaimed musician and artist Arto Lindsay begins a procession, SOMEWHERE I READ, featuring 50 dancers in large white trench coats. Serving as Performa 09’s opening event, Lindsay’s procession of dancers will swerve and jive from block to block down the Broadway pedestrian plazas to 42nd Street.  A central element of the piece will be the use of cell phones as musical instruments in a sort of pared-down marching band. Arto Lindsay’s Performa Commission was developed in collaboration with choreographer Lily Baldwin and architects Bureau V. and is presented in partnership with the Times Square Alliance Public Art Program.

To watch a video of this performance below.

To watch avideo of this performance, click here.

Guy Ben-Ner

November 1, 2009 - 7:45pm

Screening of Untitled, by Guy Ben-Ner

CNN Billboard

Produced by Performa with the support of ArtIs Contemporary Israeli Art Fund. Filmed and edited over the course of twelve months, Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner will present an unusual “live film,” commissioned by Performa, that captures an ongoing phone conversation between the artist and himself as he flies to and fro between Berlin and Tel Aviv, the respective locations of his girlfriend and his family. Unlike a regular film, which is edited externally after all of the shooting is complete, Ben-Ner’s film never leaves the camera during a twelve-month period. The film always remains “live,” awaiting the next shot, which might take place in either Israel or Germany. Ben-Ner’s “storyboard” is life itself; shots will be calculated as a linear chain of events, so that each scene occurs in real time, although with significant ellipses in between. Since the only editing is done in the camera, the move from one shot to the next requires a real physical move: the camera traveling the full distance from Tel Aviv to Berlin and back as the dialogue progresses. Shot in Hebrew, and subtitled in English, the film presents a conversation in rhyme, which discusses how art can be at the service of life and the repercussions of such a unified relationship.

Jason Peters: Now You See It Now You Don't

August 14 -16, 2009

With the arrival of the official planters and furnishing for the new Broadway Plaza of Times Square, the summer of the candy-colored lawn chairs ends and the urban legend begins for the Lawn Chairs of Times Square.  To mark this moment in Times Square history, Brooklyn based artist Jason Peters merged the remaining 80 blue, green and magenta lawn chairs into a swirling sculpture on Broadway between 42nd and 43rd Streets.  The sculpture tilted “Now You See It, Now You Don’t” was on display over the weekend of August 14-16, 2009.  Jason Peters’ sculptural installations have been seen on Governor Island, Bemis Center, the Mattress Factory and the White Flag Projects.   More images at www.JasonPeters.com.

The installation is supported by the a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and is part of the Times Square Alliance’s expanding program of temporary public art for Times Square District including Times Square, the Broadway Theaters and 8th Avenue.

Tattfoo Tan: Nature Matching System

Summer 2008

Port Authority Bus Terminal

Kai McBride:
Facing Florida: Self-Projecting Sunbelt Citizens

During fall 2008, Kai McBride's "Facing Florida: Self-Projecting Sunbelt Citizens” displays carefully- cropped photographs of Floridians who advertise themselves and their businesses on Sunshine State bus benches, bus shelters and billboards. “Facing Florida” explores the very American phenomenon of local roadside self-advertising. Photographs of smiling and earnest real estate agents, car dealers, beauty queens, lawyers and future homeowners are captured against genuine Florida suburban landscapes. For more information please visit: www.kaimcbride.com/

A Consumer's Guide to Times Square Advertising

Artist Christine Hill has compiled captivating facts and figures about Times Square advertising into an imaginative and thought-provoking artwork cum resource.

The 59th Minute

As part of Creative Time’s history of presenting innovative art of all disciplines to invigorate New York’s public spaces, The 59th Minute: Video Art on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic presents a unique opportunity for video art to be viewed within the world’s most famous media capital: Times Square.

Kimsooja: Conditions of Anonymity

March 10 - June 10, 2005 Creative Time and Panasonic, with Times Square Alliance, presented Conditions of Anonymity, one minute segments from South Koren Artist Kim Sooja's lauded video work - A Needle Woman (Kitauyushu), A Beggar Woman (Cairo), and A Laundry Woman (Yamuna River, India) on The 59th Minute Video Art on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic. In each video, the artist sits, reclines, or stands completely still with her back to the viewer, illuminating the vibrancy of the locales and the intrusions of the world around her. For more information, please visit www.creativetime.org.

At The Crossroads of Desire:

This fascinating historical exhibition at the AXA Gallery (787 Seventh Avenue at 51st Street), celebrating the centennial of Times Square, traced the area's profound effect on the evolution of American theatre, marketing, architecture, slang, sex, journalism and more. A gala opening was held on the evening of December 9th, 2004, and the exhibit will be open to the public from December 10th - March 26th, 2005.

Who's Afraid of Blue, Red and Green?

Acclaimed artist Günther Selichar's 2004 public competition for exceptional animated art, displayed on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic in Times Square.

People's Portrait Project

The Times Square Alliance, the Parsons School of Design and Reuters North American present “Peoples’ Portrait”, a project conceived by media artist Zhang Ga, using the massive video and data display screen at Reuter’s Times Square Headquarters.

TIMES SQUARE: THROUGH THE LENS

103 years of Times Square History, featuring photos from The New York Times.

"Times Square Through the Lens" documents the rich and diverse history of one of the world's most famous town centers. From the dirt streets of Longacre Square, as the neighborhood was once known, through the present, Times Square has always served as the communal center of the city, where people gathered to share both good news and bad. It has also served as an international center for culture, ablaze in neon and filled with the excitement of opening nights. "Times Square Through the Lens" documents the district's unique history through the extensive photo archives of The New York Times - teenagers screaming at the arrival of John, Paul, George and Ringo; the USO serving doughnuts and coffee to WWII soldiers; crowds and cameras at the opening of the film, "The Sound of Music."