Last month, the public art programme Times Square Arts, PRINT magazine and the New York-based museum Poster House teamed up to display artist-designed coronavirus-related messages of hope for the city, gratitude for its essential workers, and notes on public safety on nearly 1,800 digital billboards throughout the city’s five boroughs. The campaign’s second phase—organised by Times Square Arts and Poster House, along with the artist-run political action committee For Freedoms—begins today, with billboards designed by 12 artists including Jenny Holzer, Christine Sun Kim, Carrie Mae Weems, Mel Chin and Pedro Reyes. Reyes also donated an exclusive print to raise funds for The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), which launched the #NYunitedFund to help ensure the health and safety of New York’s immigrant communities. In addition to the 1,774 billboards shown throughout the five boroughs, this second phase of the project will spread to over 300 billboards throughout Chicago and Boston.
Carrie Mae Weems has coupled her photography with text to spread messages of gratitude, unity and public safety.
Pedro Reyes’s billboards use the refrain “we will kiss again” beside the motif of a fence, illustrating the loneliness and longing permeating our world during quarantine.
Christine Sun Kim—a deaf artist who works with sound and is known for her smart works alluding to the pitfalls of a world lacking accessibility for so many—has a made a video thanking essential workers.
In his poetic fashion, conceptual artist Mel Chin offers a design of hope and thankfulness
Jenny Holzer designed a video for the project which expresses gratitude to the city’s essential workers.
Coronavirusgallery
See messages of hope from Jenny Holzer, Pedro Reyes and Carrie Mae Weems being sent across New York, Chicago and Boston today
The project, organised by Times Square Arts, Poster House, and For Freedoms, will spread to over 2000 billboards in three cities
15 May 2020
A message from Carrie Mae Weems to New York's essential workers