Coachella 2016: World-Class Contemporary Art Elevates Greater Palm Springs on the Global Cultural Map
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is one of Southern California’s premier events, drawing music enthusiasts worldwide for two weekends of sun-soaked concerts across the expansive Empire Polo Club grounds.
Goldenvoice, the festival’s producer, has long championed art alongside music by commissioning site-specific installations. In 2016, this commitment reached new heights with major international artists creating large-scale contemporary works, firmly placing Greater Palm Springs on the global arts scene.
This year’s installations blend conceptual, political, and immersive experiences amid the festival’s vibrant energy, featuring two rising local talents gaining international acclaim.
Phillip K. Smith III, an Indio native and Rhode Island School of Design alumnus, returned after his 2014 Reflection Field. His 2016 pavilion is a massive circular structure with alternating mirrored slats and voids. From a distance, it shimmers like a mirage, reflecting its surroundings. Up close, it reveals an inner sanctuary with a central tree planter and seating. Inside, white squares alternate between benches for reclining and walls with color-shifting globular sculptures, offering a hypnotic escape and a micro-ecosystem within the festival crowd.
Local duo The Date Farmers (Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez), rooted in the Coachella Valley’s farming heritage, presented Sneaking Into the Show: a 30-foot sculpture of a man, woman, and lowrider bicycle. It highlights the irony that many local youth from agricultural families can’t afford tickets to the festival on their ancestral lands.
Latvian artists Katrina Neiburga and Andris Eglitis brought their Venice Biennale 2015 piece ARMPIT. This massive, armadillo-like ark of salvaged wood houses videos of Russian men in their garages, prompting reflection on the “man cave,” hobbyist ingenuity, and labor’s role in male culture.
Besame Mucho by Miami’s R&R Studios duo Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt celebrates California’s flower power era. A 130-by-28-foot wall of 100,000 vibrant silk flowers spells out the title, inviting kisses under this floral mistletoe.
Cuban artist Alex Arrechea’s Katrina Chairs honors Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans. Four 30-foot yellow chairs, each stacked on foundational squares, symbolize community resilience—viewers step inside to feel part of a greater whole requiring collective upkeep.
Taiwanese architect Jimenez Lai, founder of L.A.-based Bureau Spectacular, created The Tower of Twelve Stories: a 20-foot white, cartoonish cross-section that glows with dynamic light projections by night, mirroring the festival’s diverse, ever-shifting crowd.
These ephemeral works, viewable for one final weekend before dismantling, capture the festival’s fluid, existential spirit.
