Announcing Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw’s Hot Dog in the City, World’s Largest Hot Dog Sculpture to Debut in Times Square this April 2024

Artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw. Set Design by the Artists. Photo by Kat Ryals.

Equal Parts Spectacle, Celebration, and Critique, 65 Foot-Long Sculpture Paints a Portrait of America in NYC’s Most Iconic Public Space

Times Square Arts is pleased to present Hot Dog in the City, a 65 foot-long public art installation by the dynamic artist duo Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw. Equal parts spectacle, celebration, and critique, the project supersizes the hot dog as an iconic symbol of New York City and American culture to examine class, consumption, capitalism, and the myths of the American Dream. Hot Dog in the City builds upon Catron and Outlaw’s renowned conceptual practice, which spans elaborate large-scale sculptures to kinetic installations and immersive experiences often infused with humor and camp to prompt cultural and political commentary. The project will be on view in Times Square’s largest plaza, Duffy Square, from April 30 to June 13, 2024.

“Like us, the hot dog is an absurd mass of mashed-up fragments masquerading as one remarkable product, a Trojan Horse of individual narratives and sordid histories. When you boil it down, there’s no symbol that better relishes the American conglomerate than our audacious, record-breaking hot dog…unless that hot dog is also in Times Square,” said Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw.

Introduced to the American masses by central European immigrants as a working-class street food in the 1800s, the hot dog has since become synonymous with contemporary American culture – a staple at baseball games and Fourth of July celebrations, and even employed as a tool of US international relations, referred to as “hot dog diplomacy.” As a symbol and a street cart pervasive, the hot dog is also a mainstay throughout Times Square and a New York City icon, akin to the yellow taxi cab, the pretzel, the deli cup, and the Playbill.

Free and on view to the public 24/7 during its exhibition in Times Square, Hot Dog in the City consists of a colossal bun and classic red-tinged frankfurter topped with a giant drizzle of mustard. Controlled by hydraulic mechanisms, the hot dog will periodically ascend toward the sky and shower visitors below with confetti. Staged at high noon, these confetti festivities playfully reference quintessential American celebrations — from New Year’s Eve and hometown parades, to political rallies and gender reveal parties — as well as the hyper-masculinity and showmanship often associated with American culture and patriotism.

Hot Dog in the City is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based artist duo Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw, celebrated for their subversive multimedia practice encompassing performance, painting, video, and animatronics to create unique participatory experiences that oscillate between the tragic and absurd. Frequently focused on food, their work unpacks the complexities of contemporary culture, including consumerism, capitalism, inequity, and excess. Their giant ice cream sundaes and hams have been exhibited at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Cranbrook Art Museum. The duo’s enduring fascination with gastronomy and performance took them all the way to the reality TV show “Chopped,” which became the pinnacle of their performative fish fry food truck project.

While Catron and Outlaw’s sculpture reverberates with the spectacle and towering scale that defines Times Square, the colossal frank also serves as a decoy for deeper dialogue. Drawing parallels between the history of the hot dog and American culture as a whole, the project sheds light on topics such as street vending as an immigrant experience, the underbelly of the meat industry, the patriarchy of meat-eating, and American politics.

“Times Square has always been a place for the biggest, the brightest and the most spectacular productions, expressions, and digital displays the world has ever seen,” said Tom Harris, President of the Times Square Alliance. “Frankly, the largest and most engaging hot dog in the world fits right at home in the heart of Times Square, raising the bar once again on larger-than-life spectacles.”

“Hot Dog in the City isn’t just a spectacular sculpture; it’s a window into the heart of American camp and contemporary culture. Through the unassuming lens of a hot dog, Jen and Paul invite us to let our guard down and dig into the meaty complexities of our society with humor, audacity, and an unabashed embrace of the absurd,” said Times Square Arts Director Jean Cooney.

Throughout the duration of the project, Catron, Outlaw and Times Square Arts will activate the sculpture and its surroundings with public programs that explore the complexities, conflicting views, and absurdities and lore of the hot dog in New York City and America. Performances, talks, debates, and contests—such as a virtual condiment ballot box, wrestling matches, and dialogues led by street vendors and food historians—aim to inspire meaningful conversations and draw unexpected intersections. Whether you’re Team Ketchup vs Team Mustard, a vegan or competitive meat eater, the hot dog offers a low-stakes exercise in engaging opposing views and embracing a diversity of perspectives. The simultaneously delightful and grotesque super-sized artwork holds multitudes of opportunities for both entertainment and contemplation.

To further uplift the voices of street vendors and the critical civic issues that shape the landscape of their work, the artists will launch a video series with the Street Vendor Project(SVP)—a membership-based organization that champions the rights of street vendors as small businesses to earn a living and contribute to the culture and life of New York City. Programming details will be announced at a later date.

ABOUT JEN CATRON AND PAUL OUTLAW
Jen Catron (b. 1984, Bluford, Illinois) and Paul Outlaw (b. 1980, Fairhope, Alabama) are collaborative artists who create elaborately staged, large-scale sculptures, kinetic installations, participatory experiences and immersive environments that oscillate between the tragic and absurd. The two first met and joined forces while studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art located outside of Detroit, Michigan. After graduation, they relocated their art practice to Brooklyn, New York, where they continue to live and work. The duo often uses humor, camp, and spectacle as a subtle veil for subversion and shaded view of the American Dream. Through object-making, performance, painting, video, and animatronics, their layered conceptual works become a genuinely playful and entertaining platform for pointed cultural and political commentary. Catron and Outlaw have shown their work in institutions and galleries such as the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Postmasters Gallery.

ABOUT TIMES SQUARE ARTS
Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, collaborates with contemporary artists and cultural institutions to experiment and engage with one of the world’s most iconic urban places. Through the Square’s electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas and popular venues, and the Alliance’s own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators, such as Charles Gaines, Joan Jonas, Jeffrey Gibson, Pamela Council, Mel Chin and Kehinde Wiley, to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a cultural district and place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the arts program ensures these qualities remain central to the district’s unique identity.