FAILE and Times Square Arts bring FAILE: Wishing on You, an installation reimagining Asian prayer wheels in the context of Times Square’s kaleidoscopic history, to the Broadway plaza between 42nd and 43rd Streets from August 17 – September 1, 2015. An unveiling will take place on Monday August 17th at 11:00am. The installation is presented in collaboration with FAILE’s exhibition, FAILE: Savage/Sacred Young Minds, running at the Brooklyn Museum from July 10- October 4, 2015.
Drawing on European, Asian, and American traditions, FAILE has re-conceived sacred forms from around the world into highly interactive public sculptures, allowing them to build on a longstanding practice of inviting play and contemplation from the audience. Emblazoned with FAILE’s visual language, FAILE: Wishing on You will explore contemporary patterns of consumption, desire, and myth-making. Artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller are using this piece, their largest to date, to re-imagine Times Square - a sacred American landscape known both for bright lights and the gathering of many communities.
The piece will ask viewers to think about what spirituality and desire look like in the context of affluent global cities and create a place of spontaneity and shared experience. Even the movement of the sculpture, with each turn of the wheel powering the neon lights on the piece, is an act of collaboration and hope rather than passive viewing.
Artists FAILE said, “Although our art is inspired by so many global influences, its roots – its DNA really – are in New York, its people, and the language of its streets. While Wishing on You really builds on Times Square’s storied past – its nickel arcades, glossy ads, and carnivalesque spirit – we are also aware of how it has served for so long as a truly American place of celebration and commemoration.”
Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance, said, “Rituals that wish for hope are central to the character of our city, but especially to the character of Times Square.”
Sherry Dobbin, Times Square Arts Director, said, “I have been fascinated by the skillful and inventive way that FAILE appropriates the existing anthropologic & graphic identity of an area and transforms them into a contemporary, relevant reflection of how we as individuals live as a collage of our past references in our present tense.” FAILE: Wishing on You will be on view August 17- September 1, 2015 on the Broadway Plaza between 42nd and 43rd Streets.
