Billboard: Taína H. Cruz

Taína H. Cruz: I'm Taína Cruz. 

Narrator: Cruz’s billboard, I Saw the Future and It Smiled Back, is installed over Gansevoort Street as part of the 2026 Biennial.

Taína H. Cruz: I was thinking about how the future can feel both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I wanted to paint a moment that feels like hope and danger mixed together, like looking at the sun even when you know it might hurt your eyes. Thinking about when we had that eclipse moment a while back and everyone was desperately either trying to look at the sun or see something that was just so abnormal. And that child's glow feels alive to me, like the future itself, close breathing, watching us as we watch it. It's about the strange warmth between fear and wonder when you realize what's ahead is already here. 

And that generally is my approach to growing up in the city. New York was just a very, I'm so grateful that my parents did all they can to have the city be my playground in my backyard. And so even when I'm making my pieces today, I'm holding onto the energy that was felt as a child reading the newspaper, what's to come.