Alexandre Arrechea and Sofia Maldonado in Times Square
Times Square, the mythical New York space that is the epitome of the American theater, the billboards of financial news, the architecture of the megalopolis that includes the buildings of the movies, newspapers and sex industries, will now be the scene where for the first time in history, two Latin American artists are simultaneously chosen for the public art programs that have been developing since 2005. Art Times Square. This pioneer program of great innovative value recognized that cultural revolutions are the most powerful ones. For this reason, it has taken a 360-degree turn in the zone, feeding the, “creativity, the energy and the novelty that defines Times Square”.
The alliance with The Cuban Artist Fund has made it possible for the Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea, former member of The Carpenters group, and the Puerto Rican artist Sofía Maldonado, to literally take over this iconic space. Maldonado’s mural in 42th street can be traced back to the Puerto Rican graffiti tradition that made history in Loisada. At the same time, it is an affirmation of a unique performance piece, since the artist is more and more like her female characters that are an ultramodern version of the seductress that constructs herself. Not the woman who looks at herself through a man’s eyes, but a woman who looks at the world and seduces it with her humor, autonomy and a beauty that comes from within.
In Blank SL8, just outside the exit at the Port Authority terminal, a crucial space of the New York paradox is taken over by an imaginary female of Puerto Rican and Cuban origin that uses seduction not to arouse masculine desire, but as a form of empowerment and autonomy.
If the artistic tradition of the Caribbean iconographies in the walls of New York’s neighborhoods has existed for decades, seeing Alexandre Arrachea’s Black Sun piece projected from the video projector in the eight story Nasdaq building is irrefutable proof of the globalization of art that has Hispanic roots. An aesthetic that started in Cuba, with a potential criticism of restriction methods – the heavy chains of the prisoner transformed in a pendulum that counts time- is displayed on top of a financial center with implications that the spectators who see the re-contextualized image between 11:50 p.m. and 12 must decipher. The video will exhibit until the next March 8th and can be seen through the internet page of the Time Square webcam.
This project of the public art program of the Times Square Alliance has been made possible thanks to the help of The Rockefeller Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Cuban Artists Fund, NASDAQ, Times Square Squared, Magnan Metz Gallery, Scope Art Fair and Anonymous Gallery.
42nd Street Mural by Sofia Maldonado
March 2 - April 30, 2010
Localized in Times Square 215 West 42nd Street between 6th and 7th avenue Alexandre Arrechea video.
NASDAQ Event Space in Times Square
Broadway with 43rd street
