to: Night brings together a selection of contemporary works which explore the theme of night through a variety of approaches. Curated by Joachim Pissarro, Mara Hoberman and Julia Moreno, this exhibition opens at the Hunter College Art Galleries in September 2008 coinciding with the exhibition of Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night at The Museum of Modern Art curated by Joachim Pissarro, Adjunct Curator of the exhibition and co-author of the catalogue. to: Night will be on view at both the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery on Hunter College’s main campus and the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery located at the MFA Building in Midtown Manhattan. The exhibition features work by over forty artists and focuses mainly on works created since 2000, but also includes important historical works from the 1960s-90s. In the context of this exhibition, “night” is taken as a descriptive term which encompasses a wide range of meanings and associations—from the literal to the psychological. This vast subject is divided into thematic sub-categories, which range in character from romantic to disquieting. Included in these sub-categories are works that relate to, among other topics: celestial bodies, the “after-hours” urban experience, sleep, the nocturnal impact on color and light perception, surveillance, and voyeurism. to: Night explores the cultural, emotional, environmental, political, and aesthetic implications of the nocturnal as represented through a wide range of artistic interpretations and media. Seen together, the works included in to: Night offer a rich and diverse portrait of our complex, multi-layered perceptions of night.

Artists featured in this exhibition include Sebastian Bear-McClard, Vija Celmins, David Claerbout, Jennifer Coates, Susan Crile, Gregory Crewdson, Russell Crotty, Tim Davis, Jen DeNike, Stan Douglas, Juliane Eirich, Spencer Finch, Ewan Gibbs, Susan Graham, Laurent Grasso, Neil Gust, David Hammons, Todd Hido, Yvonne Jacquette, Yeon Jin Kim, Halina Kliem, Doina Kraal, Barney Kulok, Charles LaBelle, Claude Lévêque, Robert Longo, Britta Lumer, Vera Lutter, Florian Maier-Aichen, Vik Muniz, Lauren Orchowski, John Pilson, Thomas Ruff, Pat Steir, Deborah Stratman, Marc Swanson, Susanna Thornton, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Thomas Weaver, Shizuka Yokomizo, Kohei Yoshiyuki, and John Zurier.

Neon sculpture to be mounted on pedestrian bridges at Hunter College: Infinite Light by Laurent Grasso

In connection with these exhibitions, a work entitled Infinite Light created by the French artist Laurent Grasso, is intended to span the exterior of the pedestrian bridges that connect the main buildings at Hunter College. This marks the first time an art event of such scale has graced the exterior of the college. The piece is comprised of the words “day for night” illuminated in neon and repeated several times. The fluorescent tubes cast a blue tint which is similar to the filters used by cinematographers when filming scenes during the day to represent nighttime. By playing with the technique of “day for night,” Infinite Light produces an effect which is both spectacular—in the visual seductiveness of the material used, the scale of the piece, and the repetition of the words—and deceptive because the intensity of the light it produces means that paradoxically, it is only visible once night begins to fall.