Times Square Arts Announces New Year Season Programming Schedule

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, presents the New Year Season, December 2017 - February 2018. As part of the Alliance's commitment to showcasing the best of contemporary art, this season's lineup includes works from ArandaLasch + Marcelo Coelho, UNDERVOLT & CO and FX Harsono as well as partnerships with Design Trust for Public Space, Clocktower, Asia Society Museum, and Socrates Sculpture Park.

Debra Simon, Times Square Arts director, said, "Through the darkness of winter, Times Square remains a center of light and love, alive with history and dedicated to improving by conscious design. For the 10th Anniversary of the Times Square Valentine Heart Design Competition, we invited firms to propose a heart to illuminate the theme "Labor of Love" - but "Labor of Love" is an apt lens on many of our projects this season, including our three Midnight Moment videos, which each depict in their own way an act of endurance that is personal, political, or simply human."

February 1st - February 28th

Window to the Heart

Artists: ArandaLasch + Marcelo Coelho

Presented in partnership with Design Trust for Public Space

Father Duffy Square between 46th and 47th Streets

The winning team of the 10th Annual Valentine Heart Design Competition will create the world's largest lens in a pioneering feat of engineering made possible only by cutting-edge 3D-printing technology. Optically bending light toward its center, the sculpture will focus our attention on love with its Window to the Heart.

February 19th- 21st

Interference AV

Artists: UNDERVOLT & CO and musical acts TBA

Presented in partnership with Clocktower

AMC Empire 25, 234 W 42nd Street

Experimental video collective UNDERVOLT & CO. teams up with Clocktower to produce live projections on an epic scale for this three-night festival takeover of America's top-grossing multiplex. The movie theater-turned-concert stage will feature dynamic collaborations with momentous musicians and UNDERVOLT artists including Peter Burr and Sabrina Ratté. The party overflows to the popcorn lobby, where Clocktower curates DJs and a zine fair. Tickets are free; follow @TSqArts and @Clocktower_NYC for essential RSVP announcements.

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.

December 1 - 30

Pulse

Artist: Trine Lise Nedreaas

Times Square's Electronic Billboards

A hula-hooper uses her body as an axis to spin glowing LED hoops. Her gravity-defying work to maintain the rhythm suggests the human effort required to keep our world from collapsing. Exhibited nightly as Times Square prepares for New Year's Eve, the video may also evoke the perpetual turning of time.

January 1 - 31

Writing in the Rain

Artist: FX Harsono

Presented in partnership with Asia Society Museum to coincide with the exhibition "After Darkness: Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History"

Times Square's Electronic Billboards

A seminal figure in the Indonesian contemporary art scene, Harsono has been deeply engaged with social and political issues, including the role of the artist in the recovery of repressed histories, cultures, and identities. Writing in the Rain is a stark depiction of the artist writing his name in Chinese characters with a brush as rain slowly washes the ink away.

February 1 - 28

Save the Presidents

Artists: Tali Keren and Alex Strada

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.

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.

About 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. For more information, visit http://www.timessquarenyc.org/midnightmoment.