Experience the newest reinvention of Rockefeller Center’s founding vision

Experience the newest reinvention of Rockefeller Center’s founding vision

Rockefeller Center was an idea.

An idea to push steel further into the sky than ever before. A belief in sharing inspirational art with all who passed through. A desire to reveal the aerial corridors of the horizon.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller created the artistic aesthetic of Rockefeller Center, to seek the future from the present. “New Frontiers” was the name of the founding cultural program at Rockefeller Center, and today, we invite you to experience a cultural offering of classic and contemporary New York in her spirit, a dynamic exhibition representing innovative kinetic sculpture and interactive art.

Every visitor reinvents this exhibition and pushes the horizon further. You are the new frontiers. You are the makers, the shapers, the dreamers, the observers, the thinkers, the travelers. You honor Rockefeller Center’s original purpose to redefine form and promote beauty.

There is no better place to gaze out and imagine new frontiers than Top of the Rock.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Diana Sinclair ‘Reflections’

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www.dianasinclair.com — @dianasinclair

It all started with a gift: a Nikon camera in 2018. Since then, New York native Diana Sinclair has soared from photography novice to savant. The 18-year-old visual artist and creative director is now recognized as a pioneer at the intersection of art and technology. Her leadership in the NFT space has led to successful collaborations with TIME and the Whitney Houston estate, as well as her first solo show at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center. “I can’t pass that part of the city without a bit of pride brimming to the surface,” Sinclair remarked.

Her impact on Rockefeller Center continues with Reflections, an interactive large-scale installation for our New Frontiers exhibition. The work is the next iteration of her portrait series focused on the human experience with time, leveraging guest self-capture to create an ever-evolving collective portrait. “This installation allows for the capturing of many more faces than I alone would be able to photograph,” she explained, “building over time a whole other piece of art as it flows, just as the people do in the space.”

Andrew Giugno and Ray Kunimoto ‘Conduit No. 5’

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www.lowres.co — @lowres.co

Andrew Giugno is the founder and creative director of Low Res, a lighting design company located in Brooklyn. Since 2015, Low Res has prided itself on building volumes out of blank spaces, using unique applications of light, sound, and atmospherics. Giugno’s team began with projects in the underground dance scene. Over the course of the past eight years, their reputation has catapulted and work has expanded to collaborations with renowned performing artists, as well as big brands like Sony, Recess, and more.

raykunimoto.com — @raykunimoto

Ray Kunimoto is a multi-disciplinary artist across music, architecture, sculpture, and engineering. He employs unique 3D sound systems and technology to explore the intersection of space and sound, creating intimate connections with the audience as they see and hear his work. The inspiration comes from his worldly upbringing, born in New York and raised in Tokyo—both cities where he continues to live and work today.

“Born out of the relationship between the individual and society,” Kunimoto reflected, “art is not created by one person alone.” Together in collaboration, Andrew Giugno and Ray Kunimoto created Conduit No. 5, a time-based audio-visual installation, for Top of the Rock.

Andrew Giugno and Ray Kunimoto ‘Conduit No. 5’

BREAKFAST Studio ‘Time Capsule Over Manhattan’

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www.breakfaststudio.com — @breakfaststudio

BREAKFAST is a Brooklyn-based, world-leading artist in computer-controlled kinetic sculpture. Since 2009, their work has made waves by marrying creativity, technology, and real-time data to explore social issues such as climate change, polarization of society, and discrimination. They conceive and create their artworks entirely from the ground up through mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, and industrial design. Each installation uses their custom Flip-Disc medium, which utilizes electromagnets to flip discs at a rate of 60 times per second.

With these flip-discs, software, a camera, and a computer as their medium, BREAKFAST created Time Capsule Over Manhattan for our exhibition. The artwork captures the essence of the vistas from the 70th floor of Top of the Rock, and the millions of visitors who experience it. The piece records and plays back the interactions of each individual viewer over time, creating a unique and personal experience for every person who encounters it. “It aims to showcase something new, unique and unseen before,” BREAKFAST expounded, “pushing the boundaries of what art looks and behaves like.”

BREAKFAST Studio ‘Time Capsule Over Manhattan’

Progressive Perspectives

Visitors are treated to a regularly changing exhibit of emerging New York digital artists, whose works both react to Rockefeller Center and seek to expand its breadth and scope. These are digital interpretations of New Frontiers, allowing viewers to experience the intimacy, pace, and reach of this important medium, as it depicts new frontiers in novel ways.

Capsules

[Polar and Desert Selections]
Featured Artist: Marissa Sher

This exhibit was created by Marissa Sher, a video artist whose work blurs the lines between micro and macro. Her Capsules series documents landscapes affected by climate change, drawing parallels between celestial bodies and miniature sculptures made from nature, trash, and ice. Her work has been exhibited by Infinite Objects, Change Gallery, Artpoint, Studio As We Are, National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions. Sound design by Zosha Warpeha, a Brooklyn-based composer-performer working in a meditative space at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions.

Top of the Rock Audio Tour

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History

Over 100 years ago, John D. Rockefeller Jr. had a vision to create a “city within a city,” and the story of how Rockefeller Center came to be is a fascinating one.

Oct. 1, 1928

John D. Rockefeller leases land from Columbia University for the future site of Rockefeller Center. The land covered nearly all of the area in the three square blocks bordered by Fifth Avenue, the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), and 48th and 51st Streets.

Dec. 1931

The first Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. During the Great Depression, workers at Rockefeller Center pooled their money to purchase the original Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, a 20-foot balsam fir, adorned it with home-made garlands, and stood it at the Rockefeller Center construction site as a symbol of hope and optimism. Two years later, in 1933, Rockefeller Center made the tree an annual tradition.