Brookfield Properties has unveiled a major work by acclaimed artist Pierre Huyghe at One Liberty Plaza, a 54-story, 2.3 million-square-foot, trophy office tower centrally located in Lower Manhattan. The recently reimagined double-height lobby features Huyghe’s A:: Light, which transforms the soaring ceiling into a video game.
Visible from across neighboring Zuccotti Park and playable by visitors to the lobby, A::Light is among the most technically and conceptually ambitious artworks ever realized in a commercial office building, Brookfield said.
“Presenting this important, interactive work by Pierre Huyghe marks a pivotal moment for the next chapter of One Liberty Plaza,” said Alex Liscio, senior vice president, asset management, Brookfield Properties. “The lobby’s redevelopment was envisioned to complement his artwork, underscoring our commitment to activating our properties with dynamic experiences and museum-quality art.”
A:: Light takes as its starting point the first commercially successful video game, Pong, which simulates a game of ping pong as each player controls a paddle that moves across the left or right side of the screen. Huyghe transposes this onto the grid of a drop ceiling, with each ceiling tile corresponding to a pixel on the gameboard and wired controllers inviting visitors to play. As two people engage, the space is transformed: illuminated tiles flash on and off as the paddles move back and forth across the ceiling, bouncing the cursor across the lobby and evoking both the wonder of early video games and a digitized, cybernetic future.
“It’s particularly fitting that this work has found a home at One Liberty Plaza, given that Pong was released by Atari in 1972, and the building opened in 1973,” said Jacob King, who advised Brookfield Properties on the artwork. “With great cunning, Pierre transforms the gridded drop ceiling — which is so ubiquitous in postwar office buildings — into a site of play, interaction and wonder.”
Considered one of the most influential living artists in any medium, Huyghe is recognized for having profoundly expanded the parameters of sculpture, making work that encompasses a variety of materials and disciplines, from cinema to biology to meteorology, incorporating elements as varied as live bee colonies, aquatic ecosystems and artificial intelligence systems. A::Light premiered in 1999 at the Vienna Secession – a landmark of twentieth century architecture with decorative friezes by Gustav Klimt – and was subsequently shown as the centerpiece of the French Pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennale.
Huyghe is just the latest in a series of distinguished artists whose works have been displayed publicly across Brookfield Properties’ New York portfolio; others include Charles Ray, Christopher Wool, Richard Serra, Rashid Johnson, Isa Genzken, Thomas Schütte, Ellsworth Kelly, and Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen.
Brookfield Properties was advised on the purchase and installation of this artwork by Jacob King of Fine Art Concepts LLC, and Huyghe was represented by Marian Goodman Gallery.
Pierre Huyghe, A:: Light, 1999. Video game program, interface, joysticks, LED lights. (Photo credit: Timothy Schenck)
