You won’t find any clowns at the L.A. leg of the traveling Balloon Museum, but there are plenty of other carnival-inspired sights and sounds to be experienced: massive inflated tents, queue lines marked by bright primary colors and concessions fit for the midway.
The award-winning contemporary art museum unveiled its “Let’s Fly” show last week for a limited run at the Arts District’s Ace Mission Studios, which previously housed the fantastical amusement park Luna Luna.
Founded in Rome in 2020, the museum has welcomed more than 4.4 million visitors at its runs in cities across the globe, including Paris, Milan, Madrid, London, New York, Atlanta and Miami, among others. Each iteration is informed by the culture of the city hosting it, with the sole central medium of air.
A cross between the sensory explosion of Meow Wolf and the labyrinthine nature of an IKEA store, the experience features installations from 21 artists with avant-garde interpretations of inflatable and balloon art. On view through March 16, the exhibition is highly immersive and highly Instagrammable. Here are six things to know before you visit.
1. The experience begins even before you enter the building
The Sixth Street Viaduct stands in the background of the outdoor exhibit “D.R.E.A.M.S.” by artist Camila Falsini.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The museum opens with a walk through the gardens — more specifically, Camila Falsini’s “D.R.E.A.M.S.,” a series of oversized inflatable shapes, symbols and igloos meant to evoke a dreamlike city inspired by Pop art and the Memphis Group.
The works, created specially for the L.A. “Let’s Fly” exhibition, are striped, spotted, shaped like doughnuts and light up in the night sky like condensed, dirigible versions of Ugo Rondinone’s “Seven Magic Mountains” sculpture.
Just inside, Max Streicher’s “Quadriga” stages massive billowing horses that call to mind wingless Pegasi the way they seem to gallop through the air. And the installations continue all the way through the gift shop, which is situated between a series of photo backdrops and a food court offering concessions like popcorn and cotton candy.
2. The strongest common thread between the works is not balloons but air
Maristella Burchietti is immersed in the exhibit “AI Data Portal of Los Angeles” by the Ouchhh collective.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
One might not immediately make the connection between data and air, but Ouchhh collective’s “AI Data Portal of Los Angeles,” an immersive tunnel of LED screens broadcasting an abstract amalgamation of Excel spreadsheets, documents, graphs and other digital ephemera, reimagines the city’s cloud data as thousands of tiny colored beads. The room, which has a dizzying effect, is reminiscent of Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirror Rooms” at the Broad but looks more like something out of Ant-Man’s quantum universe.
Another exhibit, the museum’s newest work, “Mariposa” by Oakland-based LED artist Christopher Schardt, features a massive flapping butterfly powered by a swinging bench and illuminated by more than 39,000 full-color LEDs. The most balloon-like, airy element of this room is the plush bean bags, on which guests are encouraged to recline and relax.
3. You’ll want to relive your childhood by diving into the massive ball pit
The “Hyperstellar” exhibit, created by Hyperstudio, Quiet Ensemble and Roman Hill, is one of many interactive art spaces.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
There are many great and memorable exhibits in the museum, but perhaps the pièce de résistance is the massive Olympic pool-sized ball pit that hosts intermittent light shows in which additional balls and spotlights descend from the already bulbous ceiling. If Matthew McConaughey’s “Interstellar” astronaut stumbled upon a planet dominated by palm-sized black balls, it might look something like this.
In fact, “Hyperstellar,” from Hyperstudio with Quiet Ensemble and Roman Hill, is meant to evoke musings about the cosmos, with the surrounding walls wrapped with LED screens broadcasting 360-degree views of exploding water droplets and air bubbles.
4. If you’re light-sensitive, beware of The Ginjos
“The Ginjos” exhibit by Rub Kandy is one of the more intense spaces in the museum.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
While there are many rooms inside the museum that appeal to one’s senses of touch, sound and sight (including a dimly lit bubble room with wet, squishy floors), visitors at risk of seizures should avoid “The Ginjos,” an installation filled with strange inflatable creatures that are something like Minions on acid.
Even the museum’s description, which describes Rub Kandy’s creations have “huge eyes that see everything,” is mildly creepy. Add to it pulsing strobe lights and floppy, oversized, mouthless cyclopes and you have all the makings of a nightmare trip. Speaking of trips …
5. Consider visiting the museum a little buzzed
Another “Let’s Fly” exclusive, ENESS’ “Spiritus Sonata,” features hallucinogenic, elephant-balloon hybrids that are straight out of Winnie the Pooh’s psychedelic “Heffalumps and Woozles” scene. Imagine mastodon-like creatures whose noses are wind instruments that inflate the structures and emit sound.
While there were makeshift wine bars intermittently set up throughout the space during the media preview, it’s unclear whether the museum will provide provisions for the general public. But patrons who partake before arriving will definitely have a heightened experience in the trippy rooms.
6. Wear something Instagrammable — there’s a selfie opp by the exit!
Maristella Burchietti stands in one the museum’s selfie spots.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
No modern museum is complete without plenty of social media-ready photo opportunities, and the Balloon Museum saves the best for last.
In the museum’s final corridor — just past a VR headset experience and before the gift shop and food court — are situated eight jewel-toned cubicles staged with props for the perfect minimally decorated but vividly hued Instagram post.
Choose between a massive headless gummy bear, a balloon-filled phone booth, a cloudscape, L.A.-ready angel wings and other poppy backdrops for a one-of-a-kind photo experience. Because if it’s not posted on Instagram, did you even go?