Facing Florida is a public art project installed in Times Square using ten of my photographs from the Facing Tampa project. I worked with Glenn Weiss from the Times Square Alliance to realize this project which was installed September 22nd 2008 on a construction fence on 8th Avenue and West 44th street. For scale reference, the smaller images were printed 4 foot square, and the two larger images are 7 foot square. I am particularly pleased to be able to display these images outdoors as vinyl attached to wood, an analogue to the original advertisements that grabbed my attention during that first trip to Tampa.

The wall text reads:

On the edge of New York's billboard district, artist Kai McBride smartly re-advertises the advertisers. Entitled "Facing Florida: Self-Projecting Sunbelt Citizens", the public artwork displays carefully-cropped photographs of Floridians who advertise themselves and their businesses on Sunshine State bus benches, bus shelters and billboards.

McBride's images join the hundreds of new billboards that arrive in Times Square each year. The billboards are juxtaposed against each other and the streetscape as they vie to capture the attention of passers-by. This visual contrast and contest is part of the sensory experience that tourists and New Yorkers expect of Times Square.

The 8th Avenue artwork accentuates the 100-year particular connections between New York and Florida. Millions of New York metropolitan area residents have relatives of all ages in Florida. For its part, Florida receives constant exposure to images and artwork from New York, but New Yorkers' Florida experience is limited to the occasional beach or Disney tourism or airline advertisement, Miami-themed TV shows and seasonal hurricane footage.

The Florida that McBride presents to New Yorkers with this installation explores the very American phenomenon of local roadside self-advertising.

The photographs of the community's smiling and earnest real estate agent, car dealer, beauty queen, lawyer and future homeowner are captured against the suburban strips that are part of the real Florida lifestyle. None of McBride's photographs are computer montages, but actual situations of portraits advertisements in the Florida suburbs.

Kai McBride was born in Hawaii, worked in North Carolina and recently received his MFA from Columbia University. He teaches at Queens College and Mercer College. For more information visit www.KaiMcBride.com.

This public artwork is sponsored by the Times Square Alliance with the support of Tishman Hotel & Realty LP. www.TimesSquareNYC.org