Overview
Commissioned by the New York City AIDS Memorial and presented in partnership with Times Square Arts, I REMEMBER Joe Brainard is a series of animated texts by Jenny Holzer, created to mark the Memorial’s 10th anniversary. Debuting on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2026, the work honors the more than 120,000 New Yorkers lost to AIDS. It draws on Joe Brainard’s celebrated “I Remember” and brings his intimate and observant recollections to the electronic billboards of Times Square. By turning one person’s memories into a shared public experience, the project positions public art as a vehicle for collective remembrance, celebration, and gathering.
Project Context & Institutional Role
The New York City AIDS Memorial commissioned this work as part of its 10th-anniversary programming. As Executive Director, I guided the project’s partnership with Times Square Arts, bringing together Holzer’s language-based public practice with Brainard’s enduring legacy and the scale of Times Square’s Midnight Moment program.
Memory, Language, & Public Space
Holzer has long used language in public settings, from projections and LED signs to billboards, and her early-1980s work on the big board at 1 Times Square was among her first major public projects. Here, Brainard’s words appear mainly as bold white text on a black ground, ranging from “I REMEMBER BUTTER AND SUGAR SANDWICHES” to reflections on how fragile life is. These fleeting details of his early life are deeply personal yet widely relatable, a reminder that behind every name of someone lost to AIDS is the memory of a life both extraordinary and ordinary.
Brainard & Queer Artistic Legacy
Joe Brainard (d. 1994) was an artist, poet, and theater set designer who joined the New York School community of poets and painters, collaborating with figures including Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, John Ashbery, Ron Padgett, and his longtime partner, the writer Kenward Elmslie. He left a celebrated legacy within New York’s LGBTQ+ and artist communities and died of AIDS-related pneumonia at 52. Through one artist’s memories, the project calls on New Yorkers to gather and joyfully acknowledge those lost to HIV/AIDS.
Midnight Moment
The work is the Midnight Moment for December 2026, shown nightly from 11:57 PM to midnight on more than 100 digital displays between 41st and 49th Streets. Midnight Moment is the world’s largest and longest-running digital public art program, and it has featured over 150 artists since 2012.
Role: Commissioner
Date: December 1—31, 2026
Location: Times Square, New York City
Artist: Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer, I REMEMBER Joe Brainard, 2026. Text: "I Remember" from Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, © 2012 by the Estate of Joe Brainard. Used with permission of Ron Padgett and the Library of America. All rights reserved. © 2026 Jenny Holzer, member, Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
