Tonight (September 1, 2015) and 30 days ahead, Times Square is taken over by hand gestures from more than 100 music videos of the best hip-hop MCs in the world as the midnight moment is handed over to yet another artist. This time around, it is of course the multi-talented Rashaad Newsome who’s been invited to envelope the public in a three minute, six-channel video experience as the 41st artist participating in the program.
Working in video, performance, and collage, Newsome corrals seemingly chaotic expressions of street culture into rigorously formal compositions. He is best known for his videos of dancers voguing in simple white-box interiors, though he has also culled material from YouTube. His collages, seen in fall 2011 at Marlborough Gallery, arranged images of flashy jewelry and other hip-hop status items in heraldic motifs. Newsome was included in Performa 11 and the 2010 Whitney Biennial, and has participated in group shows at the New Museum, MoMA PS1, and the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Being selected for the Midnight Moment puts Newsome in line with Marco Brambilla, Yoko Ono, Ryan McGinley and Tracey Emin, who have all showed works at the New York landmark.
