Jay Scheib’s ‘The Disinherited,’ at the AMC Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street, Times Square, New York City; photo by Clint Spaulding for @TSqArts
Updates
During a major transition period for Times Square twenty years ago, artists focused on 42nd Street to alter the negative perception of the area. Now, it’s a boulevard of sorts that hosts the nation’s top grossing movie theater (AMC Empire 25), several chain restaurants, Madame Tussauds, and seminal non-profit theaters run by The New 42nd Street, an organization deeply involved in the revitalization of the area. Twenty years ago, artists were begged to consider working in the area to attract new audiences. Now, the area is a victim of its own success, and the district has been suffering from a lack of a residential community of artists who could not afford to stay. Impressions of commercialism, expensive real estate and the mall-like atmosphere of 42nd Street have deterred artists from making proposals on this legendary street. Artists have assumed that this real estate is off-limits because it’s a corporate entity too difficult to penetrate. Yet, what lies beyond the commercial façade are individuals, many of whom are dedicated to promoting creativity and ingenuity in the district.
As ongoing reconstruction of our plazas will continue for the next twenty months, but since the cold weather doesn’t help to attract audiences outdoors, we needed to consider how public art can come indoors. This means our program must always re-interpret what is considered “public” and how our definitions of both “public” and “art” determine a public art project. For January, we are successfully infiltrating the AMC Empire 25 cinema and the Duke Theater, a blackbox space of The New 42nd Street. These spaces are normally expensive to rent but, through conversations between individuals and finding commonality, we can sometimes make the seemingly impossible become possible.
Recent Wins
AMC Empire 25
Experimental theater director Jay Scheib’s live performance took place at the Kitchen, a nonprofit 300-seat performance venue in Chelsea, while simultaneously being broadcast into our commercial cinema, AMC Empire 25. The varied audience of New Yorkers looking for free events mixed with avant-garde, Brooklyn-based artists together traveled up to Theater 14, past the numerous concession stations and blockbusters to see this niche work in the context of popular entertainment. The rarely performed and unfinished work by Chekov and Platanov was shown free to the general public at 42nd Street. Our commercial partner AMC Empire 25 has tailored a unique partnership with the Alliance by creating a festival screening contract, allowing us more license to promote our work and the program.
Duke Theater, New 42nd Street
At the Duke, we will host a moderated conversation, Water Panics in the Sea, between the January Midnight Moment artist, Laleh Khorramian, and Andrew Hudson, the United Nations Development Programme representative for Water Governance and Ocean Sustainability. One of our board members offered assistance in helping us expand our program into 42nd Street, using their theater space to experiment with a talk series they have been considering. The opportunity supports our desire to raise attention to a global consciousness effort and our unique partnership with the largest and most significant NGO, the United Nations, will truly challenge our perception of what is possible on our New 42nd Street.
Insight/Provocation
It can happen in a mall! Too often we write off a potential partnership based upon presumptions of companies, corporations or large infrastructure. But within any structure, there are individuals. Exceptions to the rule are lead by personal determination and understanding. “Never assume,” said Tito Capobianco, a theater director and impresario. “Always ask,” said Robert Wilson. With a vision and a project with integrity and meaning to its site, you just may interest potential partners. See why they may be interested, and listen. What do they tell you about their organization and site? What do they tell you about their personal interests? How does this match with the interests of the projects and the partners? And don’t assume popular culture doesn’t want you.
What is Public?
It can be a common mistake to assume a definition of “public,” much like how the term “community” is often used but rarely defined cohesively. The definitions are dynamic, always changing depending on the context. The ingenuity in redefining the term is part of the creative process. A project may fail, but even a failure informs, critiques, and investigates the role of placemaking. Where and how it fails or succeeds adds to the contemporary context and the qualitative information that forms programmatic and capital projects.