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All through May, Times Square billboards to display Andy Warhol video footage from the 60s

All through May, Times Square billboards to display Andy Warhol video footage from the 60s

The artist whose name is linked inextricably to screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and the Campbell’s soup can also had a fruitful career in feature films, producing  Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and Chelsea Girls. As part of the Midnight Moments series, Times Square will run screen tests by Andy Warhol on its billboards to replace its million-dollar neon advertising—for a fleeting three minutes a day, anyway.

The footage of Warhol’s piercingly personal screen tests with friends and celebrity guests will appear each night from 11:57p.m.–12:00a.m. Lapses in ad revenue should be marginal, if negligible. Some of this footage has rarely, if ever, been shown outside of a museum setting. Candid shots of screen and music legends Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Edie Sedgwick, and Dennis Hopper filmed from 1964 to 1966 will be blown up to epic proportions on the world’s most iconic billboards in Midtown Manhattan from May 1 through 31.

The Midnight Moments series is aimed at bringing more art-oriented work into the otherwise corporate vacuum, where deep-pocketed multinationals shell out $3.8 million to advertise for 30 seconds during the Superbowl in one of New York’s most tourist-thronged, well-connected hubs. Previous initiatives include a video installation by Yoko Ono titled Imagine Peace and a multi-screen showing of Bjork’s music video for Mutual Core.


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