Live Performance by Zoë Buckman, Dave Guy, and Homer Steinweiss
Friday, November 11, 11:30pm – 12am | Duffy Square, Broadway & 46th St

We were delighted to present a special evening of live performance on Times Square’s most iconic plaza, Duffy Square, featuring a poetry reading by Zoë Buckman and musician Dave Guy of the Roots, with musical accompaniment orchestrated by Guy and soul revival drummer Homer Steinweiss. The evening culminated with a presentation of November’s Midnight Moment, MENDED, displayed on 90+ surrounding billboards at 11:57pm—12am.

Pink handsewn petals and chain links; vintage linens stitched into boxing gloves — the dualities of tenderness and strength become kaleidoscopic refrains in MENDED by Zoë Buckman, presented nightly in November across 90+ billboards in Times Square.

Through a multidisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, public installations, ceramics and photography, Buckman takes a decidedly feminist approach in her exploration of identity, trauma, grief, and empowerment. Often taking on gendered violence as subject matter, the artist uses materials that ride the contradictions between soft and hard, feminine and masculine, intimacy and aggression. The visuals of her Midnight Moment weave together imagery and motifs found throughout her work - footage of boxing gloves, domestic textiles, metal chains, and florals. Periodically abstracted and reconfigured into mesmerizing mandalas, the resulting video takes us on a journey that mirrors the swing from chaos to focused introspection that often accompanies the various stages of grief.

MENDED is an adaptation of work originally created for Loss Tapes, a collaborative digital series in which Buckman has continued her exploration of the varied qualities of grief and power in the female experience. The original iteration of the work features an accompanying score by Dave Guy and Homer Steinweiss, whose rich tones of horns, percussion, and vintage synths infuse the escalating visual sequences with the feel of a victory march.

Midnight Moment is the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on over 90 electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. This year, Times Square Arts is celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Midnight Moment series with a roster of all women and femme-expansive artists until April 2023.