Alfredo Jaar

A Logo For AmericaAugust 1, 2014 - August 31, 2014Alfredo JaarTimes Square Advertising Coalition, The Guggenheim Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumThe Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts, collaborated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to present a reenactment of Alfredo Jaar’s iconic 1987 intervention in Times Square, A Logo for America. This Midnight Moment premiered on Friday, August 1st, 2014 and played every night throughout the month on 15 signs and 45 screens in Times Square.Amidst Times Square’s context of advertising and commercial culture, Alfredo Jaar’s animation A Logo for America displayed the statement “This is not America,” emblazoned across an outline of the United States. Through an apparently contradictory juxtaposition, the work challenged the fact that the word “America” is routinely but erroneously applied to just one part of the American continent. Originally displayed in 1987 on the Spectacolor Sign in Times Square, the 2014 reiteration of this intervention pointed out that, almost 30 years later, the representation of an entire continent is still monopolized by the same, single country.The video work was acquired by the museum as part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, and was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, on view at the Guggenheim Museum through October 1, 2014.Photographs by Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts.