Midnight Moment:
Erin Johnson's Lake

Through the month of March, Visual Arts Resident Erin Johnson will exhibit her work Lake at Midnight Moment. Midnight Moment is the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. Presented by the Times Square Advertising Coalition and curated by Times Square Arts since 2012, it has an estimated annual viewership of 2.5 million.

Erin Johnson’s Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in what the artist describes as “collective queer and desirous exchanges”—holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of people, in this case artists, live in relation to—and support of—each other.he gestures and movements in the video reflect the interpersonal and group dynamics present in this kind of collectivity: each person’s movements impact the others as they try to remain close while giving each other space, attempt to stay in the frame, and hold each other up when sinking. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, this video has taken on new, additional meanings: the suspension of time, the feeling of being adrift in space, and the importance of intimacy and proximity.

To celebrate the presentation of Lake in Times Square, as well as the beginning of spring, the artist will host a Spring Equinox Gathering on Father Duffy Square on March 20, 2021 from 11:50pm-12:10am. Fellow Pioneer Works Music Resident Luke Stewart will perform a live score to accompany the presentation of Lake.

Then on March 27, Pioneer Works invites viewers for a closing celebration in Brooklyn. RSVP 

Erin Johnson (b. 1985, Tucson, Arizona) received an MFA from UC Berkeley in 2013. Johnson has had solo exhibitions at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine (2020); Iris Project, Los Angeles (2020), the Jepson Center, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia (2018), Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, El Paso, Texas (2018), Power Plant Gallery, Duke University, Durham, NC (2017). Johnson attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2019 and is currently a Virtual Arts Resident at Pioneer Works. She will be in-residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands and the Ankara Queer Art Program in Turkey later this year. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, is the largest public platform for innovative contemporary performance and visual arts. With 312,000 daily visitors to New York City’s Times Square, it is one of the highest profile public arts programs and since its inception, Times Square Arts has featured works by a diverse group of nearly two hundred prominent and emerging artists.

This program is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.