We fell so hard for IN Light IN, the digital projection festival two summers ago, that we immediately Googled to find other light festivals nearby. There really weren’t any—but there will be soon. Chicago’s Art on the Mart debuts September 29 at 7:15 p.m. (there’s even a countdown clock) as a permanent digital projection feature on the façade of the Merchandise Mart. The 25-story building is the perfect canvas, so massive in size (the Mart was the world’s largest building when it was constructed with 4 million square feet in 1930) that the city is calling Art on the Mart the largest such permanent installation in the world.
Art on the Mart is orchestrated by a company that handled temporary digital projections on the Empire State Building and the Sydney Opera House. It is expected to last for decades and become as iconic in Chicago as The Bean sculpture in Millennium Park. The projection will run for two hours after dusk, with no advertisements sneaking in. Sorry, Casper Mattress.
We’ll always have a soft spot for the digital art that danced across the Scottish Rite Cathedral and the Canal in the summer of 2016—a one-time event that celebrated the 100th anniversary of The Indianapolis Foundation, in case you’re wondering why the wildly popular art show never returned. But let’s be honest—our eyes are going to wander.
