Manhattan, NY 10036
USA
Times Square Midnight Moment :: February 2018
Save the Presidents
Artist: Tali Keren and Alex Strada
February 1 – 28
Presented by the Times Square Advertising Coalition and curated by Times Square Arts
Presented in partnership with Socrates Sculpture Park to coincide with “The Socrates Annual” exhibition
Times Square’s Electronic Billboards
For the month of Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthdays, Times Square Arts presents a “day in the life” portrait of 43 monumental busts of former American Presidents. Rescued from the site of a closing sculpture park near Williamsburg, Virginia by the entrepreneur who was hired to demolish them, the statues sit, damaged but steadfast, in the light of the sun and the darkness of night.
TALI KEREN & ALEX STRADA
Tali Keren (b. 1982, Jerusalem) and Alex Strada (b. 1988, New York City) met at Columbia University where they each received an MFA in Visual Art in 2016. Keren and Strada’s multi-media projects center on the intersection of history, politics, representation, and language. Their collaborative work has been shown at the Anthology Film Archives, New York; Museum of Moving Image, New York; MuseumsQuartier, Vienna; Austrian Cultural Forum, New York; and at the Kaunas Biennial in Lithuania. They are currently participating in the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship.
In addition, Strada’s work has been shown at the Jewish Museum, New York; National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik; and Centro Fotográfico Álvarez Bravo, Oaxaca, Mexico. Keren’s work has been exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel.
Keren and Strada live and work in New York.
TIMES SQUARE ADVERTISING COALITION (TSAC)
Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) is a trade association comprised of major advertisers, retailers, real estate firms, media companies and other businesses involved in the outdoor sign industry in Times Square, along with organizations representing Broadway and the community. Members of TSAC include: ABC Regional Sports & Entertainment Sales, Clear Channel Spectacolor, Daktronics, D3 LED, Digital Domination, Hines Management, Jamestown One Times Square, Lamar Advertising Company, Landmark Sign & Electric, Metro Media Technologies, Newmark Knight Frank, North Shore Neon, P.R.omotion!, Sherwood Outdoor, SL Green, Times Square Alliance, The WOW Factor and Thomson Reuters. www.timessquareadcoalition.org. Follow TSAC on twitter at @TSACNYC.
MIDNIGHT MOMENT
Midnight Moment is the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. Presented by the Times Square Advertising Coalition and curated by Times Square Arts since 2012, it has an estimated annual viewership of 2.5 million.
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 to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the Arts Program ensures these qualities remain central to the district’s unique identity. Generous support of Times Square Arts is provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Visit TimesSquareNYC.org/Arts for more information. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at@TSqArts.
SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
For more than thirty years Socrates Sculpture Park has been a model of public art production, community activism, and socially inspired place-making. Known for fostering experimental and visionary artworks, the Park has exhibited more than 1,000 artists on its five waterfront acres, providing them financial and material resources and outdoor studio facilities to create large-scale artworks on site. Socrates is free and open to the public 365 days a year from 9am to sunset and is located at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, New York.
