FAILE: Wishing on You
Brooklyn-based artist collaboration FAILE brought FAILE: Wishing on You, an installation reimagining Asian prayer wheels in the context of Times Square’s kaleidoscopic history, to the Broadway plaza between 44th and 45th Streets from August 17 – September 14, 2015. The installation was presented in collaboration with FAILE’s exhibition, FAILE: Savage/Sacred Young Minds, which ran at the Brooklyn Museum from July 10- October 4, 2015.
Drawing on European, Asian, and American traditions, FAILE re-conceived sacred forms from around the world into highly interactive public sculptures, allowing them to build on a longstanding practice of inviting play and contemplation from the audience. Emblazoned with FAILE’s visual language, Wishing on You explored contemporary patterns of consumption, desire, and myth-making. Artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller used this piece, their largest to date, to re-imagine Times Square - a sacred American landscape known both for bright lights and the gathering of many communities.
The piece asked viewers to think about what spirituality and desire look like in the context of affluent global cities and create a place of spontaneity and shared experience. Even the movement of the sculpture, with each turn of the wheel powering the neon lights on the piece, was an act of collaboration and hope rather than passive viewing.