KELLY WALL

For her first presentation in New York City, artist Kelly Wall will transform the iconic public spaces of Rockefeller Center into immersive fields of color and light. Presented by Art Production Fund and Rockefeller Center, this exhibition marks the first of the 2026 iteration of the Art in Focus public exhibition.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Wall employs everyday memory-loaded objects, from mugs to newspaper dispensers, to explore ideas of perception and nostalgia. Through installation, trompe-l'oeil sculpture and word play, Wall invites viewers to take a second look and reflect on the memories hiding in plain sight and influencing us daily. For this installation Wall brings the image of the sunset to Rockefeller Center, a cliché of both sappy endings and of her home town L.A.. These sunsets are distorted and merged, at times with bygone objects and equally clichéd language of “goodbyes.” By bringing these sunsets east, an alternative rhythm is proposed within Midtown’s density: viewers are invited into a moment of pause for a quiet encounter with color, light, and ephemerality of life.

Wall is an installation artist and sculptor with a material-heavy practice. With a focus on glass as a medium to explore perception, Wall relies on testing in the studio along with image collection and photography-based abstraction to create the atmosphere in her work. The project begins with the artist’s observations of atmospheric phenomena: sunsets, gradients of sky, and fleeting transitions of light, an experience both commonplace and sublime. In this presentation, Wall offers subtly manipulated sunsets to cause a double take. Marquees become window-like as distorted sunsets fill their frames, their uncanniness inviting reflection. At times distorted text overlays the image, in others, the sunset flips into an “up-set”, and in others still, expansive gradients and chromatic horizons with circles of another day’s skies float by.

Embedded within the lobby vitrines of 45 Rockefeller Plaza are three salvaged newspaper stands, repurposed by the artist into lightbox sculptures. Once important fixtures of the city’s streets, these bygone stands now hold an image of the end: a sunset in glass, aglow and arrested in time. Positioned against vinyl fields of amber fading to gray, vinyl text of the last three stanzas of Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay descends down the face of the glass vitrines.

In this same space, visitors will also encounter Wall’s custom penny press Wistful Thinking. Resembling a wishing well, the interactive sculpture produces flattened tokens stamped with messages such as “You Are Here.” For Wall, this nostalgic device and its placeless souvenirs gesture toward the slippery notion of “here,” encouraging passersby to slow down, participate, and become a part of the installation.

Viewers will discover Wall’s photography and abstract imagery in the public spaces of 45 Rockefeller Plaza, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, and 1 Rockefeller Plaza.