Marina Abramović has unveiled Snowy/Windy/Spring on Planet Z, her first inflatable art installation, at New York's Balloon Museum. The piece, which opened earlier this month, features oversized inflatable grass blades and drifting papery snow, creating an alien landscape that visitors navigate through.
A New Challenge for a Performance Artist
Abramović, speaking via Zoom from her Manhattan apartment, admitted, "I've never done anything like this in my life. But if you give me an assignment then I'll try to see what I can do with it." Initially dismissive of balloon art as "so kitschy – basically for kids and games," she found resonance with her own practice: "You put air in it, and at some point the air comes out. Or you pinch it and it disappears. The temporality of this is very close to what I'm doing: performance art."
The Balloon Museum, which bills itself as "the first permanent home for inflatable art," chose New York for its flagship after a successful 2023 pop-up. The museum occupies the renovated Tin Building, replacing a food hall with its inaugural exhibition Daydream, featuring 14 installations from artists including Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed, Karina Smigla-Bobinski, and Onionlab.
Immersive Experiences and Personal Soundscapes
Other installations at the museum include Thom Kubli's Black Hole Horizon, which emits resonant sounds and soap bubbles, and Boris Acket's work with a fabric wing and mirrored ceiling. The museum is filled with mirrors, though Abramović's installation notably forgoes them. Instead, visitors wear wireless noise-canceling headphones through which the artist recites exoplanet names in a slow monotone, enhancing the sense of being outside earthly time.
Abramović explained the exchange: "I'm giving you the work, but you have to give me time. This is the exchange. If you invest yourself into the work, then you have an experience." At 79, she believes "it's time for the public to have a direct experience" of the presentness she has championed.
Commissioned Art and Commercial Ventures
Abramović compares these projects to Renaissance artists commissioned by clergy and aristocracy, noting that "sometimes you completely fail, and failure is a very good thing. It's about courage." She has applied her approach to olive oil, tinctures, facial lotion, and espresso cups for Illy, and appeared in a Jay-Z video inspired by her MoMA retrospective The Artist Is Present.
Balloon Museum director Roberto Fantauzzi hopes the institution will balance kid-friendly "playgrounds" like the Museum of Ice Cream with traditional art institutions: "We are completely in the middle, and this is our strength." Abramović, who hadn't seen the final result at the time of the interview, said, "I don't care what the public says or the critics say." The installation remains on view at the Balloon Museum in New York.
