Jeffrey Gibson
By Maya Pontone
Water, land, sky, animals, and people were the central focuses of a prismatic projection presented by artist Jeffrey Gibson at Brooklyn arts organization Pioneer Works yesterday evening, September 23. Underscoring the earth as a living entity with deeply rooted memories, the display of “The Spirits Are Laughing” (2021) consisted of an 11-minute silent animation created by graphic designer Zach Reich in which undulating phrases such as “please take care of me,” “i have always been here,” and “we breathe the same air” intermittently appeared and disappeared into a rainbow gradient backdrop.
Tonight, the luminous display will travel to Madison Square in Manhattan as part of an ongoing public art installation series exhibiting across New York City until September 29. Timed with the annual Climate Week NYC, the project is a collaboration between Dumbo Projection Project, media company Orange Barrel Media, Shore Art Advisory, and the Illuminator art collective, supported by philanthropy organization Emerson Collective, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The project kicked off last week with a large-scale stationary vinyl display under Chelsea’s High Line and projections of the animation at Columbus Circle and Union Square. In addition to last night’s Red Hook viewing, “The Spirits Are Laughing” (2024) has been shown at the High Line and adjacent Little Island park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
It is Gibson’s first project in New York since his participation in the ongoing 60th Venice Biennale, where he is the first Native solo artist to represent the United States. The project revives a previous work the Choctaw-Cherokee artist originally created for the 2021 Hudson Eye arts festival, where he presented 50 individual stationary signs featuring the same multicolored patterns and phrases across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge connecting Hudson and Catskill, New York. Gibson explained in a phone interview with Hyperallergic how in collaborating with Reich on the animation, he wanted to create a type of “heartbeat” that is both “seductive and calming” for viewers.
Medium aside, the artist said this iteration is “radically different” in that it completely changes how audiences engage with the work.
“On the bridge, there was no vantage point to stand still long enough and watch the whole thing,” Gibson said, pointing out how the initial presentation was seen from passing cars, whereas this time, pedestrians can view the work from a fixed position and gain a better understanding of it.
“It’s hard to get people to look at art, so I think [the combination of the] scale, color, the projections, nighttime — all of those things create a different kind of experience,” Gibson said, adding that he is particularly excited about the upcoming display at the Brooklyn Bridge on Thursday, which coincides with dual-projection in Kimlau Square.
“The Spirits Are Laughing” (2024) will also travel to the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, Emerson Collective’s headquarters at 130 Prince Street, and Grand Army Plaza. Meanwhile, audiences will be able to find nightly displays at Manhattan Bridge Anchorage, on Pearl Street, and the BQE Wall in Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward Park. All projections run from dusk at 7:30pm to 10pm.
The work is also being shown as digital signs, on a large billboard display at the Citi Field stadium in Queens, and on electronic kiosks in Atlanta, Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, Houston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Columbus, and Tampa.
“In its totality, it’s really about seeing the life around you as being equal to the way that you view your own life or the people who love you,” Gibson said.
“With all of the destruction that we put upon it, the land continues to provide for us,” he continued. “My goal was really to have an audience acknowledge that.”