If you can inflate it here, you can inflate it anywhere.
Times Square’s largest-ever art installation was unveiled earlier this week as a beacon for New Yorkers and tourists alike, who are invited to “conjure” up their cathartic thoughts and feelings — and even hopes for the future.
Standing at a massive 30 feet tall, the inflatable, vibrantly striped Sculpture of Dreams is the work of Argentine artist Marta Minujín and is made of 16 separate, oblong pieces abstractly stitched together.
The giant piece evokes an uplifting embrace of intertwined limbs wrapped in a convergence of color that includes blues, greens, purples, oranges, yellows, reds and more.
The inside also features a recording of birds singing, adding an unusual intimacy within one of the world’s busiest hotspots.
The 80-year-old Minujín, who called the Big Apple home in the 1960s, had a very specific directive to visitors for her first-ever Times Square work.
“The intention of the artist is for them to conjure their wishes or dreams or desires or ambitions within the sculpture,” Jean Cooney, Director of Times Square Arts, the organization that installed the sculpture, told The Post.
“I am very happy, here is my dream,” Minujin said, in part, in a Times Square Arts Instagram post, which also alluded to capturing the “fantastic” vibrancy of NYC. “You have to come inside, close your eyes, listen to the birds, touch the walls that are very soft and colorful and take pictures!”
“People are actually doing that. We’ve seen people holding hands and having a tender moment,” Cooney added of the intimate experience. “We might have some people doing New Year’s resolutions a couple of months early.”
As for visitors themselves, one out-of-towner, 40-year-old Argentinian tourist Andrea Arguindegui, stopped by the dazzling display with her daughter, 6-year-old Emilia, and cheerily expressed an appropriate desire — to visit more places like NYC.
“My hope and dream to to be able to travel a lot with my family,” Arguindegui confessed as the installation’s recorded birds punctuated her sentiments. She added that it has “been long” since they’d traveled, “so I’m really happy to be here.”
The mom finished by saying she just wanted “to lead a super authentic life.”
Minneapolis visitor Debra Shonka-Barta, 68, lauded the “wonderful” installment before sharing her own message.
“I really hope my two grown sons that, once married — one’s getting married this weekend — that they and their children grow up in a less divisive world,” she said.
“We really are a small universe, and if the world can just come together more and people come together so that there truly is understanding [of] people’s diversity and culture — and it is one world.”
And two cheery visitors from Charleston, South Carolina — clinical researcher Brianna Geddis, 23, and behavior technician Elizabeth Singleton, 24 — had their own uplifting joint request.
“We wish for more life, more health and more wow!” they shared in unison before breaking into laughter in front of the sensational structure, which — besides drawing dream-filled visitors — also teases the upcoming exhibit “Marta Minujín: Arte! Arte! Arte!” at the Jewish Museum from Nov. 17 through March 31, 2024.
The pop artist is known as “the Andy Warhol of Argentina,” her native nation, museum curator Darsie Alexander told The Post, suggesting that Minujín’s spirit is on par with the Campbell’s Soup man.
“Part of the beauty of the work is that it’s so magnificently colorful, uplifting, and it definitely draws on the energy of Time Square,” Alexander said of the new installation. “But when you go into it, it’s quite intimate and private. That duality, I think, makes it not just something fun to look at, but something really important to experience.”
Cooney admitted that the project “took probably a little longer than your average inflatable” to get off the ground — Minujín’s custom work was shipped from Latin America — but it was “luckily” seamless to get in the air.
The director also noted that the piece has naturally fit into its urban ecosystem like the many other facets of Times Square.
“You either see people like walking straight past it like nothing has changed on their trajectory from point A to point B, but most likely people will stop and it will sustain their attention,” she added.
The sculpture, located in Duffy Square at 46th Street and Broadway, is open for the public to walk inside and around — for free — from noon to 8 p.m. until Nov. 21.
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