It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…a polka-dotted, tentacled face? Come next Thursday, November 28, that’s exactly what will take to the skies in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. As part of the retailer’s Blue Sky Gallery program, established in 2005 to bring contemporary art into the air, renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has designed a balloon for this year’s event. With her balloon, she joins program alumni KAWS, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, and even the studio of Keith Haring, each of whom has designed a work for the parade.
“For many years, Yayoi Kusama was was an artist that we really had our eyes on and wanted to work with, not only because she is one of the most popular and influential artists right now in the world, but also because her designs just really lent themselves to what we knew would be a really interesting and fantastic balloon,” the parade’s executive producer, Susan Tercero, tells AD .
A small model of the balloon demonstrates where to attach the tentacles.
Kusuma’s work for the parade, titled Love Flies Up to the Sky , is a character drawn from her “My Eternal Soul” series of work. In order to translate the concept into a balloon, Kusama and her studio collaborated with Macy’s own balloon design team to ensure the work would meet all the technical requirements for a safe flight through the streets of New York.
The balloon was constructed by hand, with each tentacle individually attached to the body of the balloon.
This year, Macy’s upped its balloon design game with new software and technology. “We take a sketch, put it into a design program, and actually create a 3D-printed model of it so that we're able to say this is where these pieces should go, this is how we're going to build it,” says Tercero. “The artist works in collaboration with us because they create that design, we’ll make alterations based on what we know needs to happen from a technical standpoint, and we’ll go back and forth until there's a final approval.”
The float was all painted by hand as well.
Kusama’s balloon design was actually one of the easier ones to realize, says Tercero. Balloons should typically be round for better aerodynamics—Kusama’s balloon was round from the start, unlike the one by Keith Haring’s studio in 2008, which was flat.
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The only major tweak on Love Flies Up to the Sky was shifting the placement of the tentacles from the artist’s original vision for better flight stability.
Yayoi Kusama’s Love Flies Up to the Sky balloon, right before its successful test flight.
The result is a 30-foot-long, 36-foot-wide, 34-foot tall polka-dotted character that’s been interpreted as a sun, a moon, and even a clown, decked out in reds, oranges, blues, and yellows. “I think it’ll be really fascinating to see how kids and adults alike respond to it,” says Tercero. “That’s what makes working with this particular artist such a fantastic moment for the parade. Her designs and her creations fall right in line with what the parade is all about—entertainment for young and old."