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(NEW YORK, NY — February 26, 2024) — Times Square Arts, the largest public platform for contemporary performance and visual arts, is pleased to announce their Midnight Moment Spring Season featuring digital works by multidisciplinary visual artists Quayola (March), Tricia McLaughlin (April), and Gabriel Barcia-Colombo (May).
As the world’s largest and longest-running digital art exhibition, Midnight Moment is a staple of New York’s global cultural landscape, displaying innovative artworks across over 95 electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. This spring season showcases the height of contemporary video art with a digital composition resembling a traditional landscape painting crafted using the latest imaging technology, an uncanny world populated by animal-like lifeforms working around the clock as terror looms nearby, and a Greek chorus comprised of New Yorkers that challenges the very notion of spectacle itself.
FULL SCHEDULE
Quayola, Storms
Presented in partnership with Artnet
March 1-31, 2024
Quayola, Storms. Photo courtesy of Times Square Arts.
Every night in March, London-based Italian artist Quayola takes over Times Square with Storms, a mesmerizing depiction of deep-sea waves that engages and reimagines canonical imagery, particularly landscape painting, through the use of contemporary technology. Recognized for a multifaceted practice employing custom-made computer software spanning audiovisual performance, immersive video installation, and works on paper, Quayola’s poetic portrayal of the ocean employs technology as a lens to explore the tensions and equilibrium between seemingly opposing forces: the real and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract, the old and the new.
Storms comes to life with high-definition footage of Cornwall, England's stormy seas, captured by state-of-the-art tools. This recording thus serves as a dataset which Quayola transforms into a digitally rendered landscape painting. Within the video artwork, waves unfurl across an ethereal expanse and storms paint themselves over the flow of time. By melding human ingenuity with technological prowess, the artist investigates the long-contemplated social hierarchy between nature and technology with the development of a fresh aesthetic dimension.
Storms is presented in collaboration with Artnet, an online art market platform dedicated to exploring the possibilities of digital art and enriching dialogues at the intersection of art and technology.
Artnet’s co-presentation of Quayola’s March Midnight Moment marks the launch of an ongoing partnership that celebrates digital art in the heart of New York City. "Lending artists the iconic canvas of New York City's Times Square, Midnight Moment stands as one of the most distinctive digital art programs. Artnet is thrilled to join forces with Times Square Arts to bring this immersive experience to our global online community," said Jiayin Chen, Vice President at Artnet.
Tricia McLaughlin, Life Forms
Presented in partnership with WallWorks Gallery and TFLR Contemporary
April 1-30, 2024
Tricia McLaughlin, Life Forms. Photo courtesy of Times Square Arts.
Each midnight this April, Times Square’s screens become a portal into New York-based artist Tricia McLaughlin’s humorous fantasy world filled with hard working mutant creatures who toil around the clock constructing an endless city. Within Life Forms, glassy-eyed creatures called “Phantasmachina” mount buildings and scale sidewalks as a threatening figure begins to approach. Undeterred, the organisms continue their Sisyphean task.
Crafted through painting and 3D animations, these life forms are inspired by biotechnology, prosthetics and the exploration of mutation. Striving to anthropomorphize geometry, McLaughlin imbues her community with not only emotions but also a sense of social responsibility.
McLaughlin’s Midnight Moment coincides with the artist’s phantasmachina exhibition, showcasing drawings, paintings and animations at WallWorks Gallery in the Bronx, NY, on view from April 6, 2024 to April 30, 2024, sponsored by En Foco. Additionally, TFLR Contemporary will host an online exhibition of McLaughlin’s work titled Out of the Abyss from April 1, 2024 to April 30, 2024.
A recorded musical score by David B. Smith and Omar Zubair will accompany Life Forms on April 5, 2024 on Duffy Square.
Gabe Barcia-Colombo, A Chorus
May 1-31, 2024
Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, A Chorus. Photo courtesy of Times Square Arts.
Brooklyn-based media artist Gabe Barcia-Colombo flips the script this May on the millions of visitors strolling through Times Square with A Chorus, a Renaissance style silent composition of a very Times Square scene: a crowd of New Yorkers pausing to witness something captivating yet unnamed. Featuring over 100 individuals, many of whom either work in or frequent Times Square, the artwork draws a frame around the notion of community and the shared experiences that make up daily life in a post-pandemic New York City.
“How does a city heal from being separated for so long, when so much of its interactions are in person, face to face?” asks Barcia-Colombo. “I created this idea after waiting for my first train ride post-pandemic. It was beautiful to see faces again, to see people smile and scream and cry on the subway. I wanted to capture this feeling of beauty and anxiety.”
Within the artwork, some observers stand in contemplative thought while others snap photos of the awe-inspiring subject, intentionally omitted from the screen. Are these individuals merely observing the plaza below, or are they participating in something sublime, confounding, or even disturbing? Evocative of a Greek chorus, which comments on collective hopes, fears and joys, A Chorus turns the tables on the dynamic between spectacle and audience. Moreover, it serves as a reflection on the barometers of social connection, often overshadowed by our mobile devices and technological distractions.
ABOUT QUAYOLA
Quayola employs technology as a lens to explore the tensions and equilibriums between seemingly opposing forces: the real and artificial, figurative and abstract, old and new. Constructing immersive installations, he engages with and re-imagines canonical imagery through contemporary technology. Landscape painting, classical sculpture and iconography are some of the historical aesthetics that serve as a point of departure for Quayola’s hybrid compositions. His varied practice, all deriving from custom computer software, also includes audiovisual performance, immersive video installations, sculpture, and works on paper.
ABOUT ARTNET
Artnet is the leading platform for the global art market, with journalism, insights and tools trusted to broaden the knowledge of professionals, private collectors and art enthusiasts alike. Artnet users and clients are able to navigate the art market with ease and, through its marketplace, buy and sell with confidence. Artnet provides users with the clearest picture of an ever-changing art world and is the leading global destination for art, with more than 60 million users annually.
ABOUT TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN
Tricia McLaughlin is a physical and digital media artist exploring the transformative effects of technology on nature with unexpected consequences. Mutant creations where function follows form stem from McLaughlin’s intuitive repurposing of robotics, biotechnology, and aeronautics. As McLaughlin explains her process,“Each painting and drawing begins as a collection of random marks on a page, allowing my subconscious mind to guide the initial creation. As the artwork develops, I start to see patterns and shapes arranging the chaos. Then I refine and define these elements, gradually transforming the initial marks into living, mechanical beings and/or structures.” Paintings are inserted into animation, 3D-designed constructions inspire paintings.
Her artwork and animations have been internationally exhibited at museums and galleries, including Palais de Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum; ARCO, Madrid, Spain; Art 42 Basel, Swiss Architecture Museum (SAM); International Incheon Women Artists' Biennale; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; MediaNoche New Media Gallery, NY; and the Bronx Museum. Public art projects include her 3D animation Virginia Beach Aquatecture, commissioned for the Virginia Beach Conference Center, VA, and delirious presented by ZAZ10TS in Times Square.
Tricia McLaughlin is the recipient of grants and fellowships, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship for her 3D animation, two grants from the Jerome Foundation and an Artist’s Fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts.
ABOUT EN FOCO
En Foco, Inc. is a non-profit that supports U.S.-based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage. Founded in 1974, En Foco makes their work visible to the art world, yet remains accessible to under-served communities. Through exhibitions, workshops, events, and publications, it provides professional recognition, honoraria, and assistance to photographers as they grow into different stages of their careers.
ABOUT TFLR CONTEMPORARY
TFLR Contemporary is a gallery dedicated to exhibiting emerging and mid-career artists, both in the US and abroad. Exhibitions and curatorial projects are planned throughout the year in various venues and online platforms.
ABOUT GABRIEL BARCIA-COLOMBO
Gabriel Barcia-Colombo is a Brooklyn based media artist whose work takes the form of video sculptures, immersive performances, large scale projections and vending machines that sell human DNA. His practice plays upon this modern exigency in our culture to chronicle, preserve and wax nostalgic, an idea which Barcia-Colombo renders visually by “collecting” human portraits on video.
ABOUT TIMES SQUARE ARTS
Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, collaborates with contemporary artists and cultural institutions to experiment and engage with one of the world's most iconic urban places. Through the Square's electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas and popular venues, and the Alliance's own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators, such as Charles Gaines, Joan Jonas, Jeffrey Gibson, Pamela Council, Mel Chin and Kehinde Wiley, to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a cultural district and place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the arts program ensures these qualities remain central to the district's unique identity.
PRESS CONTACTS
Ali Rigo
Director, Cultural Counsel
ali@culturalcounsel.com
Linda Yang
Account Coordinator, Cultural Counsel
linda@culturalcounsel.com
