Who Are the Artists Behind Monumental Works at Coachella 2023?

Revellers at California’s largest music and culture festival are experiencing colourful installations by nine artists, designers, and collectives while listening to acts like Black Pink, Gorillaz, Björk, Blondie, Chemical Brothers, Frank Ocean, and Benee.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is now taking place over two consecutive weekends, from 14 to 16 April and 21 to 23 April.

‘Surprise encounters with these outsized projects in the middle of the valley, surrounded by music and the collective energy of the crowd has become a much-anticipated shared experience at the Festival’, said Paul Clemente, director of Coachella‘s art programme.

Among the tallest of the festival’s new commissions is Vietnam-based Sri-Lankan artist, Kumkum Fernando‘s 19 to 25-metre-tall ‘idols’ called The Messengers, pictured top.

The towering robot-like figures are adorned with colourful patterns inspired by Tibetan and Hindu temples, and folk tales drawn from the artist’s youth and travels. ‘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.

Los Angeles photographer, installation, and NFT artist Maggie West—whose previous commissions include works for Netflix, Google, and Art Basel Miami Beach—is presenting a new floral-themed installation entitled Eden. Eden consists of a garden of up to 56-feet-tall 3D reproductions of photographs of flora taken under warm and cool coloured lighting palettes.

‘By photographing familiar objects with multicoloured lights, my work helps viewers look closer at some of the nature they might take for granted,’ West explained.

Other new large-scale works include French artist Vincent Leroy‘s forest of massive shifting pink reflective mobiles, entitled Molecular Cloud; and Güvenç Özel‘s monumental ‘cyber physical’ hybrid Holoflux, which lights up at night with realtime video projections of the festival and the surrounding environment.

Alongside the new commissions and installations are returning pieces including Robert Bose’s quarter-mile Balloon Chain, NEWSUBTANCES’ seven-story technicolour spiral pavilion Spectra, Donn Kennels’ animal sculptures, and interactive stage designs by Do LaB.

‘These installations act simultaneously as way-finding markers, points of congregation, and most importantly, accessible entry points for all show-goers to experience art’, explained Coachella’s Curatorial Advisor Raffi Lehrer.

‘The resulting works will become icons — part of the identity of this year’s show,’ Lehrer said. —[O]

Main image: Exhibition view: Kumkum Fernando, The Messengers, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2023. Courtesy Coachella. Photo: Lance Gerber.