Balloons

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Alexandra Francis Pop a Balloon, 2018
Latex balloons, coloured sand and fishing line

 

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Sherrie Levine Beach Ball after Lichtenstein, 2015
‘One could say the beach ball is little more than the balloon’s fat cousin; it is just heavy enough that it wants to remain earthbound, making it an ideal instrument for various beach games that require little to no effort. One might expect, however, that Sherrie Levine’s Beach Ball after Lichtenstein (2015) would, in fact, crush a small child. It’s a badass beach ball – a beach ball from “the other side of the tracks.” Even so, its ability to inflate and deflate has been stunted, like a cancerous lung – reminiscent of Midas’s damning touch that forever immobilizes his daughter. What must the beach ball give up in order to become solid and stable? Drunken losers at Coachella will no longer toss it around, but its effervescence and joyful plumpness must be sacrificed.’

 

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Zhou Xiaohu Even in Fear, 2008
‘Consisting of a weather balloon that swells, then collapses only to swell again, slowly increasing in size over weeks until it is wedged between floor and ceiling until the point of bursting, creating a building sense of anxiety that goes hand-in-hand with a possible thrill. According to the gallery, the balloon did finally burst yesterday, much to the relief of some of the gallery attendants.’

 

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ODL The Meat-Cut Balloon Factory, 2012
‘Each balloon takes about three hours to go through the assembly line. First a hand-sculpted balloon former is dipped in a soapy substance to prime it before it’s dipped in a latex vat. A thin coat of rubber adheres to the surface—this is the actual balloon, which holds the shape of the former. At this step in the process, latex colors can be mixed or the balloon can be hand-painted. Once dry, the rubber is leached and vulcanized (or rinsed and heated), which strengthens it for inflating. Finally, the balloon is stripped and inflated. The whole process is precisely timed to get the maximum output of balloons per day.’

 

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Charles Pétillon Souvenirs de famille, 2016
‘Balloons are surprisingly captivating no matter how many or few are used. When you put them in a particular space they congregate like the fingers on a hand, pointing our attention towards something usually unnoticed. Actually I find this completely refreshes our outlook on our environment. Actually balloons provide a new element to our spaces by altering the way we see things. The viewer no longer merely “views” but actually sees.’

 

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Fredrik Tjærandsen Moments of Clarity, 2019
‘Central Saint Martins graduate Fredrik Tjærandsen is the winner of this year’s MullenLowe NOVA Awards, for his balloon-like fashion collection that became a viral sensation. Enveloping models in colourful inflated bubbles that would then deflate on the catwalk to unveil rubber dresses or skirts, the Norwegian designer’s ‘Moments of Clarity’ collection straddled fashion and performance art for his degree show. He sourced the material from Sri Lankan suppliers that support and buy from local farmers.’

 

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Hester Oerlemans Chairs, 2010
balloons, adhesive

 

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Lee Boroson Canopy, 2010
‘Canopy is an inflatable structure based on images of volcanic eruptions and burning oil wells. Project is built as three separate “plumes” that connect in a crypt-like structure when installed.’

 

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Jeppe Hein Multi-coloured Mirror Balloons, 2019
‘A balloon hangs from the ceiling above people’s heads, sublty moving with the circulation of air. Due to its shape and reflective surface, the balloon produces a distorted perspective of the surrounding space, similar to a fish-eye view. Only the roof seems to prevent the balloon from soaring into the air and expanding the reflection to the infinite.’

 

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Martin Creed Work No.200: Half the air in a given space, 1998
‘The sculpture is installed, based on the artist’s instructions, by putting half of a room’s entire volume into air-filled balloons, filling the room with those balloons, and letting viewers walk in. The title points to space and air manifested as breath and volume. “It is important to me,” says Creed, “that the situation is normal, that, as usual, the space is full of air; it’s just that half of it [is] inside the balloons.” With the balloons above and below the viewer’s eye level, the mass is neither impenetrable nor heavy; rather, it coexists with people.’

 

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Yerbosyn Meldibekov The Fall of the Author, 2021
‘The Fall of the Author is a self-portrait as a destroyed monument. On a white neoclassical pedestal a figurative balloon, painted black, is bent at the shins; the rest of the body gestures to the ground as if contorted by a tornado. The metaphorical wind of the steppe is more powerful than any of the West’s memorialization strategies, be it monuments to great men or notions of individual authorship.’

 

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Kathryn O’Halloran Self-portrait from March 2016, 2016
Wool/cotton trim, aluminum leaf, balloon, helium

 

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Jenny Marketou Flying Spy Potatoes, 2003
‘A display, modeled after surveillance satellites of the 70”s is built out of domestic cheap materials such as wood and plastic which is connected to a variety of audio-visual inputs such as surveillance cameras, DVD players and 3 TV screens. The TV screens feature < Flying Spy Potatoes> series digital recordings with a custom made by wireless cam and radio receiver mounted on a helium balloon which Marketou was holding at the end of a 30feet tether while she was walking in high security public spaces in NYC which were declared as hard targets against terrorism.’

 

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Shake Tank Man, 2019
‘An inflatable artwork depicting the infamous “Tank Man” incident has appeared in the heart of Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, nearly two weeks before the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. Taiwanese artist Shake’s balloon artwork recreates the moment when an unidentified man stood before a row of tanks in a Beijing street following a military crackdown. Estimates of the death toll from the crackdown range from several hundred to thousands. An official death toll has never been released.’

 

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Doug Aitken New Horizon, 2019
‘Over the course of seventeen days in July, a hot air balloon designed as a reflective and kinetic light sculpture traveled from iconic Trustees land conservation sites in Martha’s Vineyard, greater Boston, to the Berkshires, making seven stops along the way for a series of site-specific happenings and conversations regarding the future of our culture.’

 

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Panamarenko The Aeromodeller, 1971
‘Panamarenko built The Aeromodeller between 1969 and 1971. The dirigible is the embodiment of the artist’s dream of being able to move freely through the air at any time. The basketwork gondola was designed as a living space. Two aircraft engines on top of it are used to steer the imposing airship, which is held aloft by a cigar-shaped balloon, thirty metres long. Panamarenko tested the airworthiness of his dirigible in 1971 in a field belonging to the artist Jef Geys in Balen. The plan was then to fly it to an arts festival in Sonsbeek in the Netherlands. The Dutch aviation authorities sent Panamarenko a telegram, however, banning the flight. To make matters worse, a storm blew up over Balen, causing the attempted take-off to fail.’

 

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John Knight Headshots, 2019
Latex, Helium, Fabric, Stainless Steel, Lead

 

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Philippe Parreno My Room Is Another Fish Bowl, 2016
‘The work consists of helium-filled fish shapes that have been delicately weighted to float at different heights. Circulating around these floating objects, the visitors have an experience that may be equated or contrasted with that of the fish moving aimlessly within the gallery.’

 

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Nicolas Lobo Balloon collage (Palsy version #2), 2013
‘“I hope people feel a certain kind of hate during the first moment they encounter [my work],” he says. “Later if they keep dealing with it I want them to feel like they can’t look at other things the same way anymore.”’

 

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Guy Overfelt Untitled (my 1977 Smokey and The Bandit Trans AM as an inflatable), 1999
inflatable nylon and electric blower

 

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Andrea Galvani Death of an image #9, 2006
C-print on aluminum dibond

 

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Tadao Cern Black Balloons, 2016
‘Tadao Cern uses different gases sulfur hexafluoride and helium, because helium is lighter than sulfur hexafluoride to hold the balloons in the air. Each balloon is connected to each other with metal string in space where the balloons float geometrically and serially. The artist only uses metal, rubber, sulfur hexafluoride and helium to create this hypnotic composition. ”I’m building these sculptures one by one, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that soon enough everyone will have a chance to see them alive” says Tadao Cern. Knowing that these particular installations last for a considerably short period of time, they are really alive.’

 

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Karina Smigla Bobinski Ada, 2010
sphere, helium, charcoal

 

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Gordon Matta-Clark Sky Hook (Studies for a Balloon Building), 1978
‘In 1978, after his Building Cuts, Gordon Matta-Clark began working on Sky Hooks (Study for a Balloon Building). This project wanted to create a form of vital aerial space attached to buildings without involving the use of urban land and thus avoiding all real estate speculation. The title of the project, Sky Hooks, comes from the Russian constructivist El Lissitzky who, in the 1920s, designed an elevated transport system. Significantly, Matta-Clark’s last project brought together Russian utopianism, science fiction and the need to find imaginative alternatives to the increasing pressure of the price of urban land in big cities.’

 

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Lizabeth Rossof 5 XI’AN AMERICAN WARRIORS, 2019
Nylon fabric, electric fan

 

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Ricky Swallow Caravan, 2008
‘Caravan represents a sort of hardened or fused time in which an impermanent or temporary set of forms become capable of outliving the people and events they were created to signal. Balloons are formed in a minute of our time and attached to structures, fences, awnings, letter boxes to signal and specify an occasion. Within this sculpture the balloons seem lost or detached from any occasion, moored to the floor by their weight and altered materiality, thus allowing the barnacles the opportunity to populate the surface.’

 

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Ahmet Ogüt Castle of Vooruit, 2012
Helium-filled balloon floating above the ground at a height of eleven meters. Diameter of eight meters.

 

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Mark Fell Factoid #3, 2011
‘Philosophy has investigated the linkage between the structure of consciousness and the structure of the present, but it has not taken sound into consideration. How does sound contribute to this linkage? Thinking of the repetitive temporal struc- tures of techno, or the prolonged tones of Tibetan music – some primary relationships between time, consciousness and sound could be imagined. Informed by recent studies in the psychopa- thology of time, Fell’s intense and confrontational installation Factoid #3 promotes a destabilised association between time, the self and sound. Phenomenological emphasis on flow, linearity, and the present as embedded in both the previous and the imminent, are rejected in favour of disas- sociated suprasequential nows. This work contains extremely bright flashing light, high intensity sound and generative temporal structures.’

 

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Piero Manzoni Artist’s Breath, 1960
‘Artist’s Breath consists of the remnants of a red balloon tied to a piece of string on which there are two lead seals. These elements are attached to a wooden base to which is also affixed a small metal plaque bearing the artist’s name and the title of the work. Originally the balloon was fully inflated with Manzoni’s breath but as it deflated the rubber became stuck to the wood underneath. It is now brittle and, in places, very fragile.’When I blow up a balloon, I am breathing my soul into an object that becomes eternal’, Manzoni said in 1960. Each Artist’s Breath was, however, far from eternal and the value of the deflated balloon, emptied of the very breath that warranted it, has become a humorous paradox. The balloon can also be seen as an object of pathos, the result of a gesture of creative resignation that is now a metaphor for a deflated body.’

 

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Fiona Tan Tilt, 2002
‘It’s a video of a baby, suspended in a harness by myriad white balloons. He’s having a lovely time – the soundtrack sees him gurgling, the visuals closing in on his grinning little face. The baby hasn’t learned to be scared. Hell, he doesn’t know what a balloon is.’

 

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Jan Hakon Erichsen Various, 2018 – 2019
‘The Norwegian artist is on a mission to destroy every balloon he encounters with an endless array of awkward Rube Goldberg-esque setups. Erichsen documents his inventions in “Destruction Diary” videos, which he posts daily on Instagram, and aggregates into compilations on YouTube.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I think you won’t be sorry. I think love can find some space in his magical ability to make Julia bookshelf-sized for you. Love becoming 2 meters tall jeans19’s svengali-like manager, G. ** NZ, Hi, NZ! I envy your college days. Well, if you’re marked for life by the CIA there must be snipers on the roofs pinpointing me every time I walk out the door. ** Rude Mike, Hey, Rude Mike. Welcome. You don’t seem particularly rude, but maybe that’s … what do you call it … reverse psychology? Prayers that your friend gets through it because you’re obviously a very valuable friend to him. ** Misanthrope, There are people for whom scat is an electrified fence. Change is almost always good, especially in regards to language. Oh, please, yeah, if you’re a fact nazi who wants fiction to exactly mirror reality in every detail then, yeah, you might have problems with the ‘Jurassic’ movie or, well, every movie including documentaries. ** David Ehrenstein, Hm, I’m thinking about that ‘America’s greatest black gay writer’ claim, and it’s true that I cant think of a competitor off the top of my head, but I might if dwelled further on that. ** Sypha, My memory is that scat is an absolute ‘no’ as a subject matter with you so that would explain it but if so. ** [email protected], Wow, you are your email address today. No, I haven’t had Rivera Garza’s book here before, it’s in the post that’s coming up tomorrow. I don’t know how my friend’s doing yet, I will find out this weekend. He’s here, yes, in Marseilles. ** Robert, Greetings, Robert! If you have an instinctive nausea or other ill effect at reading about scat, and I mean a lot of scat, then I think you should prepare yourself. I like Chicago physically. Every friend I have who’s there or from there is very cool and actually does read interesting books and see/listen to interesting stuff in general, so it seems like a solid location for you at least in theory from what I know. Curious to hear how you take to it. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Hogg’ is definitely some kind of test of how ‘transgressive’ one really is, I think. I’m pretty sure you can meet the challenge handily. ** Billy, The only Delaney books I’ve read are ‘Hogg’, ‘Madmen’, and ‘The Motion of Light in Water’. ‘Hogg’ is definitely the best of those for me. I’m a very weak reader in the sci-fi realm for whatever reason, so I’m not naturally inclined towards most of his books. Seems like pretty everyone considers ‘Dhalgren’ his masterpiece. ** Steve Erickson, Indeed. There were some very good bands associated with Queer Punk like Tribe 8 and others, but … I knew a little about that riot grrrl history, but I need to read more. Courtney Love, of all people, told me a lengthy-ish history of riot grrrl when I interviewed her way back when. Well, it is kind of an adventure novel, I mean, basically or sort of at least, ha ha. ** Right. Super simple today. Balloons. All you need to know. See you tomorrow.