An array of five images for five minutes will play every hour on the hour, with each image or animation playing for 55 seconds, followed by the artist’s credit.
This project originated with Times Square Arts, a New York City agency that commissions and presents work primarily in Times Square. Messages for the City began in April 2020. With collaborators Poster House, PRINT magazine, and For Freedoms, Times Square Arts launched a public art campaign of public service announcements and messages of gratitude in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, Times Square Arts explains: “The public art initiative began with a sense of urgency to express solidarity and gratitude to the city’s most vulnerable workers, and it continues as a way to honor their work and acknowledge the myriad of challenges still facing us through both pandemic and protest.” The Mint Museum is proud to extend the reach of these messages to Charlotte. Here, too, we are seeing our neighbors and fellow citizens with new appreciation.
Over three dozen artists participated in this original campaign; The Mint Museum will present 17 in the Charlotte iteration. They include from For Freedoms: Paula Crown, Nekisha Durrett, Alixa Garcia, G.O.N.G./Mel Chin, Jenny Holzer, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Pedro Reyes, Duke Riley, Christine Sun Kim, Carrie Mae Weems, and Christine Wong Yap; and from Poster House: Pablo Delcan, Joe Hollier, Maira Kalman, Richard McGuire, Gemma O’Brien, and Klaas Verplancke.
