It’s one of the most iconic venues and tourist attractions in our town. People from near and far come to see Rockefeller Center. It’s probably best known for our Christmas Tree, ice skating rink and represents all that New York offers during the Holiday Season and the TV show 30 Rock. However, it offers so much more, especially in the summer. While it may not be the first place you think of during summer, it should be considered.
This June, renowned visual artist Jeppe Hein presents Changing Spaces, an interactive public art installation on Rockefeller Center’s Center Plaza. This water-based sculpture –which Hein describes as a form of social sculpture and “liquid architecture” –will inspire visitors to interact playfully with the artwork and their surroundings and offer a peaceful respite within this iconic city center.
For the past 20 years, Jeppe Hein has exhibited at museums and presented art installations, including water pavilions, in public spaces and art institutions around the world. Hein’s practice, and approach to the site-specific reconfiguration of public space, focus on the vital integration of art and mindfulness into everyday life. His work often features surprising and captivating elements which place spectators at the center of events and focuses on their experience and perception of the surrounding environment.
Changing Spaces will consist of four circles with enclosing walls of water emerging and shooting up from the ground. The circular water ‘walls’ rise and fall at random, and merge into each other, dividing the water pavilion into smaller spaces within the structure. Visitors are allowed to move within the structure from space to space, as the artwork continually changes shape and appearance out of their control, creating a playful and interactive environment for adults and children alike.
Hein’s work at Rockefeller Center will offer an opportunity for visitors to connect with their surroundings, and with each other, bringing interaction, amusement, surprise, and curiosity to a quintessential and historic New York City destination. Changing Spaces invites visitors to partake and embrace the unexpected, as Hein challenges the traditional attitudes and expectations of art.
Changing Spaces is open on Center Plaza from 7am to 11pm Monday through Friday, and 7am to midnight Saturday and Sunday.
This epic display brings you culture, art and keeps you cool during a New York summer! It’s not to be missed!
For more information, visit https://www.rockefellercenter.com/events/jeppe-heins-changing-spaces-at-rockefeller-center/