...from today's Globe and Mail:
'Why not a banana over Texas?'
Montreal artist spearheads project that he says has many possible meanings
OLIVER MOORE
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a . . . giant banana?
A 300-metre airship shaped like a banana is expected to be released in Mexico late next year and allowed to drift across the border into Texas airspace, an unconventional art project that has received funding from the Canadian government.
If all goes according to plan, the helium-filled balloon made of bamboo and synthetic paper will circle over Texas for up to a month. It will drift in a low orbit some 20 or 30 kilometres above the Earth until it disintegrates.
Asked why he is spearheading the project, Montreal-based artist Cesar Saez responded with a question of his own. "Why? Because it's possible. Why not a banana over Texas?"
The project will cost around $1-million, roughly one-eighth of which has been raised so far. The Canada Council for the Arts has contributed a small amount, as has the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Mr. Saez said that, as with poetry, there are many possible meanings to the project, and each viewer will react differently.
"We address advertisement, we address entertainment, we address political issues," the 38-year-old Argentine-born artist said from his Montreal home.
"The issue of migration in the [United] States is another. The banana is built in Mexico and released in Mexico and enters in a furtive way."
He said the balloon will appear smaller than a crescent moon, but will be easily visible as long as it remains intact.
The project has not gone beyond the modelling stage yet, in part because fundraising has lagged behind expectations, but Mr. Saez said that they have still been able to push plans forward. Work has been done in Argentina, Cuba and Quebec.
As well as money, the team is looking for engineers, scientists, mathematicians and translators. They also need a launch site in northern Mexico.
Their legal team is already at work, Mr. Saez said, and will respond to any hostile moves by the U.S. military.
"There is no law for wind," he said. "That space is freer than the high seas."
The team's website -- geostationarybananaovertexas.com -- makes clear that this is a scientific as well as artistic endeavour.
The balloon is an open-source and collaborative project designed to "develop a new artistic discipline and a space technology accessible to everyone."
Some have suggested parallels between the work of Mr. Saez and the artist Christo, who has famously wrapped islands and buildings and, in 2005, hung bolts of saffron fabric on thousands of arches built in New York's Central Park. But Mr. Saez, who is noted in Quebec for his public works of art, rejects the comparison.
Although the banana project is Christo-like in its grandeur, the online images are actually more reminiscent of Andy Warhol's famous cover for the 1967 album The Velvet Underground and Nico. It's no accident.
"The banana is 'pop'," the team's conceptual statement explains. "At the end it [is] a Show, a banana in the sky is an odd celebration to spectacle, to the advertisement industries; and to the Warhol Art."
'Why not a banana over Texas?'
Montreal artist spearheads project that he says has many possible meanings
OLIVER MOORE
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a . . . giant banana?
A 300-metre airship shaped like a banana is expected to be released in Mexico late next year and allowed to drift across the border into Texas airspace, an unconventional art project that has received funding from the Canadian government.
If all goes according to plan, the helium-filled balloon made of bamboo and synthetic paper will circle over Texas for up to a month. It will drift in a low orbit some 20 or 30 kilometres above the Earth until it disintegrates.
Asked why he is spearheading the project, Montreal-based artist Cesar Saez responded with a question of his own. "Why? Because it's possible. Why not a banana over Texas?"
The project will cost around $1-million, roughly one-eighth of which has been raised so far. The Canada Council for the Arts has contributed a small amount, as has the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Mr. Saez said that, as with poetry, there are many possible meanings to the project, and each viewer will react differently.
"We address advertisement, we address entertainment, we address political issues," the 38-year-old Argentine-born artist said from his Montreal home.
"The issue of migration in the [United] States is another. The banana is built in Mexico and released in Mexico and enters in a furtive way."
He said the balloon will appear smaller than a crescent moon, but will be easily visible as long as it remains intact.
The project has not gone beyond the modelling stage yet, in part because fundraising has lagged behind expectations, but Mr. Saez said that they have still been able to push plans forward. Work has been done in Argentina, Cuba and Quebec.
As well as money, the team is looking for engineers, scientists, mathematicians and translators. They also need a launch site in northern Mexico.
Their legal team is already at work, Mr. Saez said, and will respond to any hostile moves by the U.S. military.
"There is no law for wind," he said. "That space is freer than the high seas."
The team's website -- geostationarybananaovertexas.com -- makes clear that this is a scientific as well as artistic endeavour.
The balloon is an open-source and collaborative project designed to "develop a new artistic discipline and a space technology accessible to everyone."
Some have suggested parallels between the work of Mr. Saez and the artist Christo, who has famously wrapped islands and buildings and, in 2005, hung bolts of saffron fabric on thousands of arches built in New York's Central Park. But Mr. Saez, who is noted in Quebec for his public works of art, rejects the comparison.
Although the banana project is Christo-like in its grandeur, the online images are actually more reminiscent of Andy Warhol's famous cover for the 1967 album The Velvet Underground and Nico. It's no accident.
"The banana is 'pop'," the team's conceptual statement explains. "At the end it [is] a Show, a banana in the sky is an odd celebration to spectacle, to the advertisement industries; and to the Warhol Art."
