Six artists and designers debut monumental installations at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2022. Even though the event is ending, people can’t stop talking about the incredible artwork that gives Coachella its edge.
Colossal, plant-filled canine silhouettes. A fierce, towering protector with horns affixed to her head. A colourful assemblage of kaleidoscopic, skybridge-linked towers rising high above the Sonoran Desert. Coachella arrived, conquered, and it was nearly time to go.
After a two-year hiatus prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has returned to the grounds of the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, for its 21st edition.
Joining a bevvy of top musical acts –Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Swedish House Mafia with the Weeknd, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Carly Rae Jepsen, Arcade Fire, not Kanye West, and more – are a total of 11 artists, designers, and architecture studios hailing from across the globe that was commissioned to create immersive, site-responsive art installations for Coachella’s 2022’s six-day run from April 15–17 and April 22–24.
‘In the same way, music is a universal language. The experience of these new spaces invites connectedness and adds an iconic sense of place in the spirit of the Festival,’ said Paul Clemente, Art Director for Coachella.
Other famous visual artists who returned this year included Coachella’s ‘balloon guy Robert Bose, whose over-400-meter-long Balloon Chain installations arc across the sky above concert-goers, and UK art and design studio NEWSUBSTANCE, who won the International Design Awards Gold Prize for their Coachella installation Spectra in 2018.
Also returning are Santa Fe artist Don Kennel’s gigantic animal sculptures, Los Angeles-based creative team Do LaB’s interactive stage designs, and art by local after-school art group Raices Cultura from the City of Coachella.
The 2022 program of international and local multidisciplinary designers and visual artists included newcomers to the festival this year, including Coachella Valley local Cristopher Cichocki, who ran a pavilion based on his continually-evolving immersive multi-sensory installation and performance work Circular Dimensions; New York and Rome-based architectural studio Architensions erected five interconnected towers clad with coloured film and mirrors.
Other artists this year included husband and wife duo Los Dos, Buenos Aires-based architecture and design firm Estudio Normal, Dutch designer Kiki Van Eijk, and Romanian Architect Oana Stanciu, who has previously collaborated with Kanye West, the late Virgil Abloh, and The New Museum.