Archive | 2021
Commercial Breaks: Intra-spectacular Public Art
Abstract
This chapter turns to curatorial initiatives to bring art into mediated advertising spaces. A historical narrative of interventions in New York’s Times Square from the 1980s to the present considers how and if art can produce meaningful moments of encounter within an overwhelmingly commercial space. Beginning with Messages to the Public in the 1980s and concluding with Midnight Moment in the 2010s, I argue that these initiatives develop a kind of intra-spectacular practice that works within the shifting commercial screen landscape to productively point to its edges. Artists explored include Jenny Holzer, Pipilotti Rist, Jeremy Blake, and others.