We wait in anticipation of the next Art Production Fund work, due to open this evening (February 27) at the Rockefeller Plaza. After the “Artists Towel Series,” four towels designed last year by Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Peyton, Jeff Koons and Kehinde Wiley, and the six-foot die-cut vinyl Christmas tree sticker created by Marilyn Minter (an ecological alternative to watering a dead tree), it’s now the turn of the British artist-duo Tim Noble & Sue Webster, whose Sacrificial Heart was recently on view at Gagosian’s Davies St. branch in London.
Following the historic status of fountains as civic places to socialize and interact, Noble & Webster will present Electric Fountain, a 10-meter-high sculpture fabricated from 3,390 LED bulbs and 527 meters of neon tubing, co-produced by Jeffrey Deitch and sponsored by Lexus and Tishman Speyer, co-owner and manager of the Rockefeller Center. The Center is no stranger to this type of show, having already hosted large-scale installations by Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons.
Noble & Webster’s work has often created polymorphous icons celebrating spectacle, excess, beauty and desire within the consumer society. Electric Fountain is meant to create a hypnotic experience for viewers and draws inspiration from Las Vegas, Time Square and Bernini’s Triton Fountain in Rome.
Meanwhile, Art Production Fund – a non-profit organization founded by Doreen Remen and Yvonne Force Villareal dedicated to producing ambitious public art projects – is supporting the next Whitney Biennial. Due to open on March 5, this year will inaugurate several projects at the New York Park Avenue Armory. This venue, which recently hosted three on-site installations by Pietro Roccasalva, Lisi Raskin and Spencer Finch respectively, was already used for Aaron Young’s Greeting Card. Young’s work consisted of a huge event organized by Art Production Fund, featuring 288 fluorescent red, pink, orange and yellow panels and ten motorcycle riders performing a sort of tribute to Jackson Pollock’s ‘action painting.’ The next project to be aided by Art Production Fund will be created by Terence Koh.