Coachella 2023 art: The stories behind the robots, flowers and other installations

The art installations at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival remain ever-evolving and intriguing, especially at night. This year’s lineup of artists have created art pieces that are poetic, inspired by nature, merge art and architecture and make use of new technology such as digital mapping. Here’s a look at the 2023 installations:

‘The Messengers’ by Kumkum Fernando

‘The Messengers’ by Kumkum Fernando at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

Sri Lankan artist Kumkum Fernando makes art figures that are typically 30- to 40-inches tall. But for his largest works to date at the Empire Polo Club in Indio for Coachella, he created colossal statues ― measuring up to 80 feet ― that he refers to as “idols” to serve as a vibrant forum for attendees.

As an artist living and working in Vietnam, the rich colors of South Asian art and architecture, including the Tibetan and Hindi temples, stimulate his imaginative reflexes. Each stature features some poetic storytelling.

“I made a series of work completely out of window grills, another series from patterns from Persian rugs, and another from temple patterns. One day, I was arranging objects, and they appeared to form a figure. Then I thought I should make figures with these patterns,” Fernando said.

One of the art pieces, “The Flying ilo,” is named after his son, Kai-ilo, who Fernando said “lives thousands away from me” in the accompanying poem.

‘Molecula Cloud’ by Vincent Leroy

‘Molecula Cloud’ by Vincent Leroy at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif.

Clouds over the Empire Polo Club during Coachella can be distressing, but not these massive reflective orbs created by Paris-based artist Vincent Leroy, who created this art installation inspired by movement to stimulate festivalgoers’ experiences and actuality of the natural and artificial worlds.

The artwork features large reflective orbs resembling clouds acting as mirrors reflecting the festival grounds, people and the sky as the sculptures change shape.

‘Holoflux’ by Güvenç Özel

‘Holoflux’ by Güvenç Özel at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

When viewed from a distance, Los Angeles-based artist Güvenç Özel’s “Holoflux” appears sculptural, but the 60-foot-tall structure made of steel and wood takes on many three-dimensional forms and is sometimes invisible. But upon a closer view, its architecture allows festivalgoers to walk underneath and around it and become immersed in the colorful symmetry.

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Projections of real-time video appear on the art at night, which is when the effects of the art disappear and reappear. It also features flashing lights, graphics and changing colors.

According to Özel, the artwork is a meditation on our relationship to the physical and virtual world and utilizes architecture and the human experience as “an ecosystem of different media.”

“I call myself a cyber physical architect and a critical technologist,” Özel said. “Cyber physical, meaning the work covers cyberspace and physical environments and the interaction between the two. Critical technologist, meaning engaging with new technological tools — their meaning, their impact in our social interactions, their impact on our environmental and political considerations, and how we can create more meaningful and engaging experiences to enhance the way that we socialize and communicate with each other.”

‘Eden’ by Maggie West

‘Eden’ by Maggie West at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

Los Angeles-based artist Maggie West is used to creating art in the natural world and using plants, minerals and other ecological items in her art. This installation features her photography of floral pictures on 20 steel sculptures ranging from 6- to 56-feet tall.

The range of each sculpture brings out the details of the plants and flowers, such as the stamens in the center of the lilies. But the photos come alive at night with mapped projections on each of the figures to enhance the vibrant acts of each image.

“I love to capture elements of the natural world within artificial environments,” West said in a statement. “Color is a powerful piece of our perception of the world. By photographing familiar objects with multicolored lights, my work helps viewers look closer at some of the nature they might take for granted.”

‘Spectra’ by NEWSUBSTANCE

‘Spectra’ by NEWSUBSTANCE is seen with festivalgoers walking inside for views of the grounds at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., Saturday, April 16, 2022.

The seven-story, multi-colored spiral tower known as “Spectra” has been on-site since 2018, and thousands of festivalgoers walk the spiral stairway to the viewing deck at the top of the structure for a 360-degree view of the festival.

The total weight of Spectra is 349,440 pounds, according to creator Newsubstance. It is made of 54,000 bolts, nuts and washers.

‘Balloon Chain’ by Robert Bose

Desert Sun reporter Erin Rode holds the “Balloon Chain” at the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 15, 2022.

Since 2009, the “Balloon Chain” has been a staple of the festival, often appearing in several photos and pop-culture references of the festival. The chain features several balloons stretching hundreds of feet into the air of the festival’s skyline. Last year, the chain was blue and yellow, in honor of Ukraine.

Bose came up with the idea for the balloon chain while at Burning Man in 2006. To avoid losing each other, Bose and a friend attached strings of five or six balloons to the backs of their bikes. Seeing the balloons float straight up in the air sparked an idea.

That evening, he started adding balloons to the chain, and kept adding them until he reached around 100 balloons and the rest is history.

Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or on Twitter at @bblueskye.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella 2023 art installations first look: Robots, flowers and more