New York | North America
During the month of President Lincoln and President Washington’s birthdays, Times Square Arts is presenting a “day in the life” portrait of 43 significant busts of former American Presidents. The exhibition, presented in partnership with Socrates Sculpture Park to coincide with “The Socrates Annual” exhibition Times Square’s Electronic Billboards, has been curated by Times Square arts and the Times Square Advertising Coalition.
The busts were rescued from the site of a closing sculpture park. The park, situated near Williamsburg, Virginia, were rescued by the entrepreneur who was hired to demolish them.
“Save the Presidents explores the promise and instability of political representation, while questioning mythologies of democracy, power and gender.”
Tali Keren and Alex Strada, the two artists responsible for the exhibition, met during 2016 at Columbia University where they were completing their MFA in Visual Arts respectively. Since then the creative pair have been collaborating with their work being shown all across the world. The two artists are currently participating in the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship.
When asked about the project the artists commented “By showing Save the Presidents as the Midnight Moment for February 2018, we are excited to bring a surreal farm and work-site in rural Virginia to the centre of commerce, traffic and tourism in New York City. The film is slow and quite – a stark contrast to the buzz of Times Square. At the same time, both spaces are monumental and fantastical.
Save the Presidents explores the promise and instability of political representation while questioning the mythologies of democracy, power and gender. It functions as a Rorschach test onto which Times Square pedestrians may naturally project their political fantasies and associations. In our current, precarious political moment, the work encourages a reassessment and reimagining of the history and future of the American presidency.”
Save the presidents will be running from 1 to 28 February 2018.