Shahzia Sikander

Live Musical Performance by Du Yun, Zeb Bangash and eddy kwon
Saturday, September 30, 11:30pm–12am | Broadway between 45th St and 46th St

On Saturday, September 30, Pulitzer Prize winning composer Du Yun, vocalist Zeb Bangash, and interdisciplinary artist eddy kwon joined us for a free, open-air musical performance to accompany Sikander’s Midnight Moment.

Watch the full performance

Every midnight in September, a cyclical struggle unfolds across the screens of Times Square. Imagined as a fictional Indo-Persian-Turkish miniature painting come to life, Shahzia Sikander’s Reckoning depicts a dramatic choreography of floating warrior-like figures entangled in joust amidst an abstract, unraveling landscape. Reckoning draws upon themes of creation, conflict, and connection, mirroring the universal tensions that exist within broader global relationships, such as between migrant and citizen, woman and power, human and nature.

An intricate animation made from multiple layered drawings, Reckoning was created in 2020 and featured as a digital component of Sikander’s recent public art project Havah … to breathe, air, life commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy and on view in Madison Square Park and the nearby Courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The multi-site project was commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy and Public Art of the University of Houston System, where it will be restaged in the fall of 2023.

September’s Midnight Moment is presented in partnership with Sean Kelly and The Armory Show as a part of Armory Off-Site, the fair’s outdoor art program featuring large-scale artworks across New York City’s parks and public spaces. Sikander’s work will also be on view in the Platform section of The Armory Show, curated by Eva Respini, which will feature large-scale installations and site-specific works that reexamine historical narratives.

The animation for Reckoning is by Patrick O’Rourke and an original score was created by Du Yun, both long-time collaborators of Sikander. The work marks Sikander’s second Midnight Moment, the first being Gopi-Contagion presented in October of 2015.

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Midnight Moment is made possible by the Times Square Advertising Coalition, ABC SuperSign, American Eagle, Branded Cities, Clear Channel, Disney Store, Express, Levi's, LG, Line Friends, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, New Tradition, Outfront, Paramount, Sensory Interactive, Sephora, Sherwood Equities, Show + Tell, Silvercast, Swatch, T-Mobile, TSX, and JCDecaux.

Major support of Times Square Arts is provided by Morgan Stanley. Additional program support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support for Midnight Moment is provided by Meta Open Arts and the Times Square Advertising Coalition.