NEW YORK, NY.- Times Square Arts partnered with video artist Yuge Zhou for the upcoming edition of “Midnight Moment,” New York City’s largest digital public art program. Co presented with artnet for the entire month of June, Zhou’s Trampoline Color Exercise will play nightly across the legendary 92 electronic billboards of Times Square, located between 41st and 49th streets in Midtown Manhattan.

Midnight Moment will be the largest platform yet for Zhou’s Trampoline Color Exercise, which has been exhibited in numerous venues worldwide, ranging from Expo Chicago to South Korea’s Gwangju Media Art Platform. The 3-minute video features a moving image collage of leaping gymnasts whose uniforms and identities shapeshift as they flip and tumble on pink gridded trampolines. Created by manipulating aerial vantage points from archival broadcasts of Olympic Games footage, the artwork is a bird’s-eye meditation on the human form and the athletic pursuit of perfection. The mass of figures also reads as an abstract play of primary colors—a timely yet subtle nod to global national flags and fluctuating affiliations in an ever-changing geopolitical climate.

Zhou’s meticulous practice involves precise, collage-based digital manipulation, using both found footage and the artist’s own documentation. Underlying themes of allegiance and coexistence frequently recur throughout her work. Born in China and currently based in Chicago, her recent projects explore the geographical, ideological and emotional distance between her homeland and America—her adopted country and broader challenges of transcending separation.


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“Trampoline Color Exercise was created over the past few years amid intense political and international divisions, and it now feels especially timely,” says the artist. “I’m thrilled to see it presented in such an iconic, larger-than-life space, where it will be experienced by a diverse audience from all over the world. At its heart, the work is a celebration of globalization and a reflection on allegiance.”

Zhou’s Midnight Moment debut follows a distinguished roster of artists who have presented groundbreaking digital works through the platform, including Olafur Eliasson, David Salle, and Laurie Simmons, among many others. As a digitally-native, international artist, Zhou brings her own distinctive approach to digital collage and time-based media to Times Square. In, Trampoline Color Exercise , Zhou speaks directly to the immigrant experience in a way that is meditative and visually-engagin —offering a spectacle of color that feels at home in the intercultural landscape of New York City, yet offers much-needed respite and a sense of togetherness in a world gone awry.

“We are thrilled to have Yuge Zhou kick off our Midnight Moment summer season,” says Jean Cooney, Director of Times Square Arts. “Trampoline Color Exercise is playful, accessible and infinitely evolving – much like Times Square itself – with unassuming layers of cross-cultural references which feel especially relevant to this contemporary moment.”

Yuge Zhou: Trampoline Color Exercise will run nightly from 11:57 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., June 1–30, 2025. A public viewing party celebrating the artist will take place on June 13, 2025, with details to follow.


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THE ARTIST

Yuge Zhou is a Chicago-based video artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally in prominent art and public venues. Her work has been featured in the New York Magazine, Hyperallergic and Frieze, and was recently acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation. Yuge is the recipient of the 2024 Joyce Foundation Artadia Award and a 2021 Artist Fellowship Award in Media Arts from Illinois Arts Council.

Growing up in the second stage of China’s economic reform, Yuge witnessed a massive influx of migration, expansion and globalization. At the age of five, she became a household name in China as the singer for popular children’s TV series. Yuge came to the US almost two decades ago to earn a degree in computer science and subsequently moved into video art and installations. As she has moved between continents and from the East coast to the Midwest, she has become deeply intrigued with coexistence and our social encounters across urban spaces. Her recent projects explore the geographical, ideological and emotional distance between her homeland and America—her adopted country—and broader challenges of transcending separation.

In addition to her art practice, Zhou also directs and curates Chicago’s 150 Media Stream, a uniquely-structured public digital art installation. In this capacity, she has worked with over fifty media artists and cultural institutions to create innovative programming each month that engages a cross section of diverse communities.

TIMES SQUARE ARTS

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, collaborates with contemporary artists and cultural institutions to experiment and engage with one of the world's most iconic urban places. Through the Square's electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas and popular venues, and the Alliance's own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators, such as Mel Chin, Tracey Emin, Jeffrey Gibson, Ryan McGinley,

Yoko Ono, and Kehinde Wiley, to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the Arts Program ensures these qualities remain central to the district's unique identity.

MIDNIGHT MOMENT

Presented in collaboration with the Times Square Advertising Coalition, Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment is the world's largest and longest-running digital public art program. On display nightly and seen by millions of viewers each year, Midnight Moment showcases the work of contemporary artists on the world’s most iconic public canvas – the electronic billboards of Times Square.

Synchronized across 90+ billboards between 41st and 49th Sts every night from 11:57pm-12am, the program features a new artist’s work each month. Midnight Moment is made possible by the dozens of billboard operators who generously donate their advertising space for these 3 minutes each night, 364 nights each year.