IF THEY COME IN THE MORNING (WITH BRUJAS)

2017 PUBLIC ART FUND, TIMES SQUARE

Podcast: Rachel Wolf interviews Sue de Beer & Arianna Gil Public Art Fund, September 24, 2019

PDF transcript of the podcast

Public Art Fund; About the Exhibition ‘Commercial Break’

Our world is increasingly shaped by the display of visual information. Digital advertising has been seamlessly integrated into both public and private spheres, while modes of communication, from social media to the smartphone, have changed the way we think about our virtual and physical worlds. Commercial Break, a citywide exhibition, presents 23 artists who have created platform-specific interruptions within the advertising cycles of some of New York City’s most highly visible and technically advanced digital screens. These include a large billboard in Times Square; Barclays Center’s “Oculus,” a 360-degree LED marquee in Prospect Heights; 19 digital screens at Westfield World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan; hundreds of LinkNYC’s Link kiosks in all five boroughs; and PublicArtFund.org, where the work will be embedded as a pop-up “ad.”

Commercial Break draws inspiration from the organization’s seminal exhibition series Messages to the Public, which ran on the 800-square-foot animated Spectacolor lightboard in Times Square from 1982-1990. Similarly disrupting the daily flow of advertising, but reflecting today’s visual saturation of digital screens, the artists in Commercial Break represent a new generation working in digital media to create interventions that resonate with today’s world. The array of commissions reflect and respond to issues relevant to our current moment: the shifting notions of online and offline spheres, the circulation of images, as well as the pervasiveness of advertising and its power to affect the political, social, and personal realms of society.

Commercial Break is Public Art Fund’s largest group exhibition to date and marks its first time presenting work in all five boroughs simultaneously.