Times Square Arts, The Queens Museum, and Absolut Art are pleased to partner to present artist Kenneth Tam's Midnight Moment video installation Silent Spikes this June. 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.
As part of the presentation, Absolut Art is offering two signed, limited edition prints by Kenneth Tam on absolutart.com and donating $2,500 to Heart of Dinner, a nonprofit collective selected by Tam, which works to fight food insecurity and isolation experienced by Asian American seniors throughout New York City.
Presented across 75+ digital billboards in Times Square every night this June, artist Kenneth Tam's Midnight Moment Silent Spikes reimagines Asian American identity through performance and movement. Set against a saturated and dream-like backdrop, Silent Spikes features Asian American men of various ages and backgrounds dressed in iconic American cowboy garb, mimicking the movements of a bull rider in slow-motion. The figure of the cowboy looms large within the American popular consciousness and continues to function as shorthand for a kind of idealized white Western masculinity.
Using the power of cinema and the iconography of the Western film genre, Silent Spikes inserts Asian American men into a space from which they have traditionally been excluded and asks viewers to question how mythologized conceptions of America's past continue to shape ideas about the performance of race and gender today.
"By having Asian men step into this role, I pose the question of who has access to embody these characters and the larger ideas they represent. At the same time, how can movement be used to change how we understand these figures?" asks Kenneth Tam.
"We are proud to be working with both the Queens Museum and Absolut Art to amplify Kenneth Tam's timely, visually striking artwork on such an epic scale and accessible public stage. Times Square is a dynamic space for Tam to interrogate the enduring power of the moving image and the iconography of Western ideals," said Times Square Arts Director Jean Cooney.
Silent Spikes is presented in partnership with The Queens Museum, where Tam's solo exhibition of the same title is on view through June 23, 2021. Organized by Queens Museum Assistant Curator Sophia Marisa Lucas,
Kenneth Tam: Silent Spikes features new video and sculpture work that reflects upon the entangled histories of Westward expansion and immigration in the U.S. by working collaboratively with contemporary subjects of the Asian Diaspora. This work was made possible by the Queens Museum with support from the Asian Art Circle at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
"Tam's work is especially moving at a moment when we've all had to consider the importance of intimacy to collective well-being, and critically-what it really means to be seen and cared for. I can't think of a better circumstance than for this work to be on view in its enveloping entirety at the Queens Museum, while also featured on the stage of Times Square for thousands more to connect to," said Queens Museum Assistant Curator Sophia Marisa Lucas.
Tam's Midnight Moment is also presented in partnership with limited edition print platform Absolut Art, which is offering two still images from Silent Spikes - Silent Spikes (Tyler) and Silent Spikes (Virgo) - in signed, limited editions of 25 prints. Priced at $500 each, the prints are available exclusively on
absolutart.com.
"Making art accessible is at the core of Absolut Art's mission so we're thrilled to share Kenneth Tam's thought-provoking work on a platform as significant as Times Square. We hope that it will help make space for crucial conversation surrounding race, gender identity, and the Asian American experience," said Absolut Art CEO Nahema Mehta.
"At Absolut Art we are huge admirers of Kenneth Tam and his explorations of everyday performance. Kenneth is also doing such important work as an activist in the Asian American community, and we are proud to support a cause close to his heart," said Absolut Art Global Creative Director Michelle Grey.
