Commercial Break

Our world is increasingly shaped by the display of visual information. Digital advertising has been seamlessly integrated into both public and private spheres, while modes of communication, from social media to the smartphone, have changed the way we think about our virtual and physical worlds. Commercial Break, a citywide exhibition, presented 23 artists who created platform-specific interruptions within the advertising cycles of some of New York City’s most highly visible and technically advanced digital screens. 

RELENTLESS TENDERNESS (2017) by Pozanti, HayalPublic Art Fund

Hayal Pozanti's RELENTLESS TENDERNESS appeared in the advertising cycle at Westfield World Trade Center as a striking contrast between familiar and unknown languages. Pozanti's alphabet of shapes floats in the background, while its English translation spells out the words “RELENTLESS TENDERNESS,” which scroll across the screen. This distinctively human expression differentiates us from artificial intelligence to emphasize the commonalities we share as a species.

My Vision (2017) by GCCPublic Art Fund

Founded in the VIP lounge of Art Dubai in 2013, the collective GCC aims to investigate the contemporary culture of the Persian Gulf region. Circulating on Barclays Center’s “Oculus”, digital images of the oil paintings of the members of GCC were positioned in the role of “Baba”, or the Father, a title often used by political leaders within the Middle East. Their painted eyes replicated variations of the gaze found in traditional portraits of heads of state, from the “visionary” leader to the punitive stares of a dictator. Big Baba’s eyes are always watching.

If They Come in the Morning 1 (2017) by de Beer, SuePublic Art Fund

Sue de Beer’s films explore social issues in contemporary culture with a unique visual style of colored light, prismatic doubling, and close cropping that create an enticing cinematographic charm.

If They Come in the Morning 2 (2017) by de Beer, SuePublic Art Fund

Her contributions to this exhibition feature two young urban skateboarders from the Bronx “Brujas” feminist skate crew who view their interventions into the city and urban street culture as a deeply political act.

If They Come in the Morning 3 (2017) by de Beer, SuePublic Art Fund

Their strong presence on an advertising screen in the center of the city, images of their political heroes, and de Beer’s final appeal “Don’t Mourn, Organize,” all send a powerful message about the radical nature of their actions.

Step 1, Whitaker, Hannah, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Step 2, Whitaker, Hannah, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Hannah Whitaker begins to create her photographs with a technique that may not involve digital pixels, but which evokes the first computers’ “punched card” that enabled data processing.

Step 3, Whitaker, Hannah, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Step 4, Whitaker, Hannah, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Whitaker created a series of screens that (section by section) expose her subjects onto the film. Through this meticulous, repetitive process, she created a group of images for Commercial Break with moving bodies framed in colorful geometric forms. In this way, she uses the techniques of digital information processing and rudimentary animation to create striking photographs that evoke historic digital technology. These refer to the innovative pioneers of graphic design and advertising in an iterative way that adds a flash of whimsy and color to our urban dynamism.

Arcangel Surfware Times Square Video (2017) by Arcangel, CoryPublic Art Fund

Cory Arcangel's interest in the language and culture of the internet has led him to establish Arcangel Surfware, a clothing and lifestyle merchandise line and publishing imprint created in collaboration with the global merchandise giant, The Bravado Group, a division of Universal Music Group. This ad spot sends a clear message with its cozy tube socks and branded sweatpants: Arcangel Surfware products consist of everything one needs to "chill" in bed all day and surf the Internet in comfort.

Prelude to Serendipity In collaboration with Sarah Lineberger, Erizku, Awol, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Bitches Brew, Erizku, Awol, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Awol Erizku’s photographs focus on the ways that people of color represent themselves as well as how they are portrayed in the art world, advertising, and in the media. The artist’s tableaux and portraits reference historical imagery, mine high fashion, are in close dialogue with street culture, and evoke the old masters.

Tinashe, Erizku, Awol, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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untitled (Study of hand holding a rose), Erizku, Awol, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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His series of artworks for Commercial Break merged these diverse references and styles, as well as recognizable tropes with the enticing imagery of contemporary floral still-lifes to produce striking photographs that compel us to scrutinize the power of pictures that proliferate in the world today.

Liquid Demo (2017) by Robak, TaborPublic Art Fund

Tabor Robak’s computer-generated works merge 3-D animation, gaming, and the language of marketing to create an instructive tension between reality and simulation. For Barclays Center’s “Oculus,” Robak used innovative methods to create his new colorful artwork.

For Kiyoko, From Amache, Horvitz, David, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Across LinkNYC kiosks, Horvitz displayed one simple image of a night sky, with a short text that directly addresses the viewer—a reference to advertising slogans. However, the words do not form a benign statement but poignantly reference his grandmother, who was incarcerated in a Japanese Internment Camp in the United States. The facilities were in operation for four years following Pearl Harbor and detained between 110,000-120,000 Japanese Americans. The work is a personal yet universal, timely and elegiac reminder to take heed of the past, especially when crafting the future.

WHAT'S THE DAMAGE (2017) by Phillipson, HeatherPublic Art Fund

Heather Phillipson’s videos and sculptural installations are a surge of images, noises, colors and words that, together, form complex poetic digressions on our contemporary moment. "WHAT’S THE DAMAGE" transmitted the energy and emotion of political protest. The work smashed together representations of destruction to reflect back a chaotic, urgent moment onto Times Square.

Your Year by Fardaous Funjab (2017) by Bennani, MeriemPublic Art Fund

Meriem Bennani’s new artwork for Barclays Center’s “Oculus” screen was an advertisement for an imagined line of hijabs that expands upon her “Fardaous Funjab” videos. That series, about an invented entrepreneur "avant-garde hijab designer,” addresses the issues surrounding the headscarf's cultural significance and re-evaluates preconceived Western notions about Islamic attire. Her special “Your Year” advertisement proposes an inclusive, multi-ethnic calendar that unifies Islamic holidays with secular ones as well.

This New Situation, Blalock, Lucas, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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This New Situation, Blalock, Lucas, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Lucas Blalock’s strange photographs bluntly reveal the mechanisms of digital manipulation. He fully exposes these techniques, which are typically concealed to create compelling, perfected bodies in advertisements.

This New Situation, Blalock, Lucas, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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This New Situation, Blalock, Lucas, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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By preserving the clumsy quality of his alterations, and in the way that he offers a series of displays of floppy hot dogs, the artist presents us with a kind of slapstick sendup of the perfected advertisement, lampooning the whole medium with pathos and whimsy.

Consonance and Dissonance in Four Parts for Times Square (2017) by Bress, BrianPublic Art Fund

Brian Bress’ three videos in Times Square displayed four elusive figures who are delicately balanced in a state of tension. Their subtle movements make them emerge into the foreground or blend in with their bold graphic backgrounds.

Consonance and Dissonance in Four Parts for Times Square (2017) by Bress, BrianPublic Art Fund

Bress’ fabricated landscapes and faceless characters combine humor and art historical references to produce an enigmatic and subtle tableau vivant with powerful metaphorical implications.

Consonance and Dissonance in Four Parts for Times Square (2017) by Bress, BrianPublic Art Fund

Understand, Catala, Antoine and Kahan, Gabriel, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Understand, Catala, Antoine and Kahan, Gabriel, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Understand.nyc is a collaboration between the artist Antoine Catala and the MIT researcher Gabriel Kahan. For the run of Commerical Break, the duo used the citywide network of LinkNYC kiosks to run an open call for members of the public to partake in a two-day workshop. Reaching beyond their immediate circles, their aim was to find a diverse group of random volunteers to work collaboratively towards identifying a situation common to the participants. Through a series of discussions, the group selected the question 'What is Love?', identifying six causal loops: 'Reality', 'Phantom Love', 'Impossibly', 'Live Love', 'The Mirror', and 'Uncoupling'.

Understand, Catala, Antoine and Kahan, Gabriel, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Understand, Catala, Antoine and Kahan, Gabriel, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Through collective making these casual loops were then visualized as physical objects, called ‘tiles’, which were scanned and are displayed as 3D objects on http://www.understand.nyc, where visitors to the site can interact with the tiles. They were also shown on the LinkNYC kiosks network one day after the exhibition closed.

Understand, Catala, Antoine and Kahan, Gabriel, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Anxiety hits, Thie, Britta, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Britta Thie’s work examines the human condition, through soap operas, advertising, and the complex fluctuating relationship between the self and digital representation. The artist’s six-part web series, Translantics, dramatized the characteristics of millennials, through online personas, and the fluidity of identity and nationality.

The Superhost, Poster, Thie, Britta, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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For the LinkNYC kiosks, Thie ran a commercial for her forthcoming follow-up series The Superhost. Set in a fictional Airbnb apartment, the satirical drama centers around post-digital self-commodification, achieved through online rating systems. The sitcom was performed in front of a live audience in June 2016, and the live-recordings and rehearsals form the final web series, with added animation and a laugh track that corresponds to rating-stars. The show launches in March 2017 on ARTE.TV as a web series. For more information please visit the-superhost.com

The Superhost, Teaser (2017) by Thie, BrittaPublic Art Fund

Crete Meat (2017) by Kelley, Mary Reid and Kelley, PatrickPublic Art Fund

Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley create black and white videos filled with historical references that explore the condition of women throughout history by combining wordplay-rich poetry, fictional characters, and utopian environments. Their new video titled Crete Meat, adapted from their 2014 work Swinburne’s Pasiphae, fuses classical antiquity with pop culture. Shown within the context of Times Square, this video became a satire of advertising, highlighting the peculiarities of desire.

The Crying Sun (2017) by Polska, AgnieskaPublic Art Fund

Agnieszka Polska videos often start with found material, from archival photographs to illustrations, which she manipulates through animation and collage. Her subject matters are based on past events and people, to demonstrate how history can be fictionalized, erased, or rewritten.

The Crying Sun (2017) by Polska, AgnieskaPublic Art Fund

"The Crying Sun" was an animated film inspired by the children’s poem "What the Sun Has Seen," by Maria Konopnicka, an influential Polish poet of the positivism period, a translator, journalist and progressive activist for women's rights and Polish independence. Common themes within the poet’s work included the poverty of the peasantry and their oppression; this poem tells, in a childlike manner, of the countryside’s daily life, rituals, and activities, as viewed by the Sun above. In Polska’s video, the Sun, while bright and childlike, starts to cry, becoming a powerful metaphor for the pain of being a passive viewer without having the agency to act.

Lesson LXXV, Syms, Martine, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Deeply influenced by film and television, Martine Syms’ multimedia work examines representations of blackness and its relationship to American situational comedy, language, cinema, and feminist movements.

Lesson LXXV (2017) by Syms, MartinePublic Art Fund

Her new video, "Lesson LXXV," was a continuation of her ongoing series that began with the artist creating commercials on the ‘lessons’ outlined in Kevin Young's book of prose, "The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness." While previous Lessons have featured personal and found video, for Times Square Syms created a poignant yet disquieting self-portrait with charged overtones.

What separates us from everything that ever existed in this world (2017) by Arunanondchai, KorakritPublic Art Fund

Combining styles and references from Thai pop culture to art historical canons, Korakrit Arunanondchai creates installations, videos, and performances that question the effects of imperialism, tourism, and the idea of authenticity.

To see the vertigo of this world and dissolve into lightness (2017) by Arunanondchai, KorakritPublic Art Fund

For Times Square, Arunanondchai created three videos, which can be viewed in sequence or independently. The works poetically take us on a journey between Thailand and New York, with vignettes of his grandparents and post-election protests.The videos’ juxtapositions—youth and age, past and present, hope and loss, happiness and pain—poignantly remind us of the complex, tragic, yet beautiful nature of life.

Whisper to me the chorus for the new world (2017) by Arunanondchai, KorakritPublic Art Fund

What separates us from everything that ever existed in this world (2017) by Arunanondchai, KorakritPublic Art Fund

The Safe Space (2017) by Satterwhite, JacolbyPublic Art Fund

Jacolby Satterwhite’s videos of environments inspired by science-fiction use performance and 3-D animation to explore memory and personal history. His new work for Barclays Center showcased a 360-degree virtual reality video. Its futuristic scene features an extraterrestrial landscape of bright whirling machines and dancing figures to entrance viewers with their immersive allure.

The Safe Space (2017) by Satterwhite, JacolbyPublic Art Fund

Babble, Fornieles, Ed, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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"Babble," "Gabble," "Rabble," "Yabble," advertised a 'Political Conversations Series', which the artist plans to activate after the exhibition to encourage further dialogue on political divisions. Each work points to a position on the political spectrum, from radically left to right.

Gabble, Fornieles, Ed, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Rabble, Fornieles, Ed, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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Fornieles’ works for this exhibition spoke to a current moment with historic references, where ideologies are represented through codes, symbols, individuals and language. However, today, the internet provides the optimum platform for their circulation and assimilation.

Yabble, Fornieles, Ed, 2017, From the collection of: Public Art Fund
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A memory can live (2017) by Evans, Cecile B.Public Art Fund

"A memory can live" is the origin story of "What the Heart Wants," Cécile B. Evans' 2016 video installation commissioned by the 9th Berlin Biennale. "What the Heart Wants" explores what it could mean to be human in the future, and what constitutes ‘a person’. HYPER, the narrator of What the Heart Wants, presents herself as a new system, introducing viewers to a future time called "after k", and proposes a solution to the collapse of the WWW. In "A memory can live," HYPER presents a public service announcement for a clean slate: a blank, editable document page where users can collect their thoughts, start new conversations free of convoluted interfaces and timelines. HYPER's product isn't for you, it is you—start building her world at http://amemorycan.live/ now.

A memory can live (2017) by Evans, Cecile B.Public Art Fund

We Need Sanctuary (2017) by Cooper, KatePublic Art Fund

Kate Cooper digitally manipulates images of women to question the aesthetics of advertising and representations of femininity. In "We Need Sanctuary," Cooper uses computer generated (CG) figures as the protagonists to consider their potential and presentation as autonomous entities with a logic of their own.

We Need Sanctuary (2017) by Cooper, KatePublic Art Fund

While typical CG bodies are always faultless, here the women appear ‘broken’—frustrating the typical position they occupy as perfect versions of the female form. The result is a work that is at odds with what it is made for, with the characters refusing their prescribed purpose.

We Need Sanctuary (2017) by Cooper, KatePublic Art Fund

Commercial Break with Casey Jane Ellison (2017) by Ellison, Casey JanePublic Art Fund

Casey Jane Ellison is a stand-up comedian, artist, and writer. Working with performance and video, her works often humorously address television and celebrity culture, feminism, identity politics, and the history of art. In line with the ubiquity of online advertising and messaging, Public Art Fund invited Ellison to develop a series of pop-up “ads” for the exhibition’s home page. Ellison created an episode – complete with breaks where the exhibition artworks run as commercials – where she muses on the perils of bread and fascism.

Credits: Story

Public Art Fund gratefully acknowledges the generosity of its 40th Anniversary supporters:

40th Anniversary Leadership Circle
Jill & Peter Kraus, Jennifer & Matthew Harris, the Charina Endowment Fund, Elizabeth Fearon Pepperman & Richard C. Pepperman II, Jennifer & Jason New, Elise & Andrew Brownstein, Holly & Jonathan Lipton, Marcia Dunn & Jonathan Sobel, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Patricia & Howard Silverstein, The Silverweed Foundation, Katherine Farley & Jerry Speyer, AllianceBernstein L.P., and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.


Commercial Break is presented with special thanks to Westfield World Trade Center, Barclays Center, and Intersection.

Additional support for this exhibition is provided by C L E A R I N G, New York/Brussels, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Jessica Silverman Gallery, and those who wish to remain anonymous.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.