Art in Focus

Rockefeller Center, in partnership with Art Production Fund, presents a series of public art pop-ups throughout the Center. Taking place in unique and unexpected locations, the multidisciplinary program showcases installations inspired by the New York City landscape and contemporary life.

Current Installation:

WILL COTTON

Acclaimed New York-based artist Will Cotton brings his imaginative world to life at Rockefeller Center with a stunning public art exhibition featuring larger-than-life murals and captivating sculptures. The presentation invites the public to step into a fantastical landscape set amidst the urban environment of Rockefeller Center. This program is the next iteration of the renowned Art in Focus public art program presented by the non-profit Art Production Fund.

Cotton’s site-specific installation at Rockefeller Center brings together his paintings of the American cowboy, mythical creatures, and his iconic landscapes of a confectionary utopia. Cotton, renowned for his signature blend of uncanny realism and Americana, transforms Rockefeller Center into a dreamscape where vast skies and iconic cowboy imagery intertwine with the luscious textures of cakes and sweets.

On the Rink Level beneath 45 Rockefeller Plaza, a massive mural features imagery of his painted series of cowboys and unicorns, along the 125-foot display. These images also appear across the Center in several public locations (30 Rockefeller Plaza, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, and more), adding an exciting visual spectacle to the New York City landscape.

The cowboys and unicorns in Cotton's latest works serve as modern mythic figures, representing the rugged individualism of the American West and the ethereal beauty of these splendid, but complex creatures. This installation also revisits a central theme in Cotton’s work: the allure of sweets, confections, and the dreamlike landscapes of a sugar-coated, but flawed utopia. Cotton merges the visceral and the ephemeral. The juxtaposition of these elements—the earthy, gritty cowboy culture with the ethereal and magical presence of unicorns, alongside his iconic candy-coated worlds—invites viewers to reflect on how temptation and indulgence shape our understanding of reality.

In the vitrine spaces of 45 Rockefeller Plaza, Cotton revisits his earlier imagery of sweets, cakes, and confections, which has long served as a vehicle for exploring themes of excess, and the tension between overindulgence and insatiability. Featuring towering cake sculptures and large scale details of sumptuous frosting, these works confront the viewer with the dissonance between consumption and lack, questioning how desire is constructed and how the visual language of indulgence can both seduce and critique.

This exhibition, placed within the grand context of Rockefeller Center, provides a space for reflection on the construction of American mythology, the role of excess in shaping identity, and how our cultural narratives are informed by both the tangible and the imagined. Cotton's approach to painting—rich in detail, texture, and color—serves as both a formal and conceptual meditation on the nature of spectacle and the complexities of visual pleasure.