THE 59TH MINUTE RETROSPECTIVE
Selections from 7 Years of Video Art

Since 2000, Creative Time and Panasonic have given artists the opportunity to showcase their video art in the media mecca of the world – Times Square. Airing on the last minute of virtually every hour on the Astrovision screen at 1 Times Square - the famous location where the New Year’s Eve ball drops - artworks by established and emerging artists have offered a minute of escape, intellectual reflection, humor, poetry, beauty, and zen-like contemplation. Creative Time’s 33rd anniversary seemed a fitting time to honor this internationally acclaimed program with a two-month long survey featuring selections from the more then 25 video works including: Tibor Kalman’s Tiborisms, William Wegman’s dogs, Kimsooja’s meditative figures, Jeremy Blake’s abstract art, and The Neistat Brothers’ mouse trap.

When Creative Time and Panasonic first joined forces in 2000, the Astrovision was the largest and most high-tech screen in the area. Today, Times Square has radically transformed with an explosion of motion media signs that have turned this already frenzied environment into an all encompassing outdoor commercial cinema. In the only neighborhood with a zoning ordinance where it’s actually illegal for a sign NOT to be illuminated, and where the average person is exposed to 5,000 commercial messages per day, The 59th Minute has offered millions of passersby opportunities to pause and see their surroundings anew through the eyes of artists.

The 59th Minute has inspired new public video programs in metropolises across the country and around the world, and continues to bring the best of video art to Times Square on the last minute of every hour.

The 59th Minute has been selected by John Waters for Creative Time’s project, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This. Plaques are installed at 33 sites marking NYC’s creative history from 1974 – 2007. Hear a story from John Waters about Fischli & Weiss’s Cat Drinking Milk that played on the Astrovision Screen in 2001. Call 408-794-0835 x 16.