Creative Time: The Book
The sponsor of public arts projects celebrates its 33rd anniversary by publishing a visual historical retrospective.
Mark McMenamin -- Interior Design, 9/17/2007 12:00:00 AM
If you prefer your labels strict and dry, call Creative Time a non-profit sponsor of public art projects. But the New York-based group would much prefer you use another moniker: "visionary cultural provocateur."
For more than three decades, Creative Time has facilitated more than 300 public art projects from 1,300-plus artists. These range from the 42nd Street Arts Project, which transformed pre-Disney Times Square into a round-the-clock art exhibition during the summers of 1993 and 1994, to the Tribute in Light, the two great beams of light that rose above the former World Trade Center site six months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and have returned each year to commemorate the anniversary.
After 33 years of teaching New Yorkers the fine art of urban experiential art, Creative Time could probably write a book. And, that's exactly what they’ve done. Creative Time: The Book is a 290 page hardcover edition published earlier this year by Princeton Architectural Press with financial support from the Annenberg Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs document Creative Time's history, accompanied by a forward by executive director Anne Pasternak, and essays by Peter Eleey, Kirby Gookin, Frances Richard and Linda Yablonski, among others.
We've assembled a few noteworthy images from the book, including the Times Square and Tribute in Light projects, which may be accessed by clicking at right to begin the slideshow. If these whet your appetite for more, you can find more information on the group—including a link to Amazon.com, where Creative Times: The Book may be ordered at a discount from its $50 cover price—at www.creativetime.org.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES