Yuji Agematsu: Times Square Times (Kodak All-Stars)

By Peter Brock

The orgy of artificial light and advertising causes most visitors to tilt their heads skyward as they drift through Times Square. Despite, or perhaps because of this maximalist effort above our heads, Yuji Agematsu remains attuned to the peripheral drama unfolding at street level. Over the course of four years during the mid-2000s, the artist took hundreds of 35mm photographs during nightly walks through Midtown Manhattan’s most exalted intersection. The resulting images form the basis of his third solo exhibition at Miguel Abreu Gallery. Six slide projectors cycle through 382 images in a darkened gallery, accompanied by a looping soundtrack of field recordings of urban ambiance. Times Square Times (Kodak All-Stars) marks the consolidation of a lesser-known part of Agematsu’s practice. His celebrated sculptures present detritus collected during walks as elegant fossils of a consumerist empire. As a cycle of fleeting images, this work emphasizes the visual curiosity that drives Agematsu’s decades-long relationship with the ultimate specimen: New York City...READ MORE

Installation view: Yuji Agematsu, Times Square Times (Kodak All-Stars), Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York. Photo: Stephen Faught.