Nov. 16–April 15, 2018, visitors to New York City’s Madison Square Park can enjoy the shimmering display of Whiteout, a newly commissioned public art installation by Austrian-born artist Erwin Redl. Hundreds of translucent white spheres, each fitted with LED lights, are suspended just two feet above the ground across the park’s central Oval Lawn from a network of steel poles and cabling. A computer-generated, undulating wave pattern travels across the array of spheres, and the movement of wind and air around them also influences the lights, creating an animated, responsive field of illumination.
Erwin Redl is internationally recognized for his large-scale light works, frequently sited on building façades and public spaces. His projects have included a 2002 projection at the Whitney Museum of American Art and a 2010 installation on the Wexner Center at Ohio State University in Columbus. Trained in Vienna with an undergraduate degree from the University of Music and Performing Arts and holding an MFA in computer art from the School of Visual Arts, Redl combines architectural sensibility, digital control systems, and an interest in motion to produce immersive environments. Whiteout is the 35th installation in the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s series of outdoor exhibitions and continues the Conservancy’s commitment to presenting contemporary public art that engages visitors and the urban landscape.
The design emphasizes both collective pattern and individual detail: from a distance the suspended spheres read as a shifting, luminous surface; up close, visitors can appreciate the subtle interplay between programmed sequences and the natural influences that alter each light’s behavior. The work’s placement on the Oval Lawn invites passersby to move through and around the installation, changing their perspective and the relationships between viewer, object, and space. As daylight fades, the LED elements reveal layered rhythms of brightness and shadow, while the installation’s low elevation keeps the experience intimate and pedestrian in scale.
Whiteout demonstrates Redl’s continued exploration of light as a sculptural medium and of digital systems as facilitators of visually dynamic public experiences. By integrating responsive electronics with a large, outdoor arrangement, the piece blurs the boundary between static sculpture and temporal event, prompting viewers to consider how programmed motion and ambient forces together shape perception. Presented during the late fall and winter months, the installation also plays against seasonal light conditions, offering evolving visual effects as weather and daylight change throughout its run.
Madison Square Park Conservancy’s outdoor exhibition program has a long history of commissioning new work that dialogues with the park’s historic landscape and the daily rhythms of the city. Whiteout fits within that tradition by creating a temporary, site-specific environment that encourages exploration and repeated visits. Whether experienced at dusk, night, or on a crisp winter day, the installation invites contemplation of light, movement, and the ways public art can transform familiar urban settings into moments of collective wonder.