Perhaps you read — yesterday in The Wall Street Journal and today in The New York Times — about JR’s project at the New York City Ballet. The French artist who goes by JR is known for his provocative, open-air photographic installations, and the Ballet commissioned a work from him for the Koch theater as part of The Art Series, which employs visual arts as a way to connect to new audiences. The Art Series is in its second year, and it makes perfect sense since, as Karen Girty, the Ballet’s senior director of marketing and media, told the WSJ, “We’re a visual art form as well.”
The Times story was headlined A Giant Photo Connects Fans to Ballet Stars, and said The Art Series “aims to draw more art fans to ballet” and “was designed to draw newcomers to the ballet.”
What a heavy load to place on a work of art. It got me wondering if we sometimes ask too much of art — certainly, I think, that the NEA’s ArtPlace program expects too much economic activity from the arts. But in this case, the NYC Ballet seems to be getting it right.
According to the WSJ:
To encourage viewers, City Ballet reduced ticket prices to $29 for a handful of coming performances, including Feb. 7 and 13, and audience members will receive a small giveaway, designed by the artist.
Art Series launched last year with the Brooklyn-based artist collective Faile. About 70% of the Art Series patrons were new to City Ballet, and those who attended had a far higher rate of returning to the ballet than average, according to …Girty…
According to the NYT:
At last year’s installation, by the Brooklyn artist collective Faile, 70 percent of the people who went to the two special art-theme performances were new to City Ballet. An unusually high number of those first-timers came back to the ballet, [Girty] said: about 7 percent. The previous record for getting first-time ballet audiences to return came when the company put on Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty†soon after “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,†and about 5.8 percent of the “Nutcracker†novices were enticed back.
What is this year’s work? Last fall, JR asked the company’s dancers to pose on crinkled white paper, in his pre-sketched positions, while his camera shot from above. The resulting 6,500-square-foot photo he produced was placed in the theater’s promenade, and when viewed from above, the dancers resemble a giant eye.  JR also made a large poster for the front windows of the Koch theater, and 10 smaller works of the dancers for the lobby.
Read more about it in a Q&A with JR that the NYC Ballet has posted here.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the WSJ