A dazzling light installation commissioned by Arts Brookfield will transform the high reaches of Brookfield Place World Financial Center Winter Garden into a kaleidoscope of color and light on winter evenings starting on January 22nd.
Created by internationally acclaimed lighting artist and veteran theater designer Anne Militello, Light Cycles will feature strands of mirrored discs embedded with LED lights suspended from the ten-story pavilion's glass-vaulted ceiling. From January 22nd through March 30th, the discs will float above the venue's iconic palm trees enchanting visitors to the Winter Garden and the adjacent outdoor Plaza.
Each evening after sunset, the LED panels on the discs will turn on for the exhibition's nightly display. Drawing inspiration from the rich variety of color shifts seen in natural phenomena, Militello will be on-site for two weeks in January to program new compositions of shifting movements and patterns which will be stored and then replayed throughout the remainder of the exhibition. Viewers looking into the atrium from the Winter Garden Plaza will be treated to an array of jewel tones – sapphire blue, ruby red, amethyst, and citrine – evoking the twinkling of multi-colored stars or an aurora borealis against the glass curtain wall.
"Anne Militello's breathtaking Light Cycles will create a completely special and unforgettable experience for audiences who visit the Winter Garden and Plaza," said Debra Simon, Vice President and Artistic Director of Arts Brookfield. "It promises to be absolutely mesmerizing and needs to be seen to be fully experienced.”
Anne Militello has created permanent art and architectural lighting designs around the world, including the critically acclaimed façade of the New 42nd Street Studios Building in Times Square. Her creations can also be seen atop the Four Points Sheraton in midtown, across the façade and windows of the New York Historical Society, and at the Missoni Boutique on Madison Avenue, where her large window art installation was the centerpiece of a BBC documentary about her work. A longtime collaborator with writer/director Sam Shepard, she has designed scores of plays off and on Broadway, earning an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence. She worked with director David Lynch to create the controversial Industrial Symphony No.1 at BAM, and designed international concert tours for Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Pearl Jam, Lou Reed, KD Lang, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, among others. She recently lit Lincoln Center Festival’s tribute concert to Curtis Mayfield at Avery Fisher Hall. The founder of Vortex Lighting in Los Angeles, she is the head of the lighting design program at the California Institute of Arts.
The Light Cycles exhibition continues Arts Brookfield’s growing status as one of New York City's leading presenters of free visual arts. The winter 2013 season includes two additional commissioned projects: Field Guide to a Metropolis, a mural by internationally acclaimed artist Amy Kao, and Desert Air, an exhibition of large-scale photographs of remote environments by award-winning photographer George Steinmetz.