Balloon Museum announces details for inaugural exhibit at new New York headquarters

The Balloon Museum has announced details for the inaugural exhibition of its first-ever permanent location and headquarters, which is scheduled to open July 15 at the Tin Building in New York City.

The exhibition, titled “Daydream, Air Becomes Art,” will feature works from Marina Abramović, Martin Creed and other international artists working with air, light, sound and inflatable forms, the museum said in a news release.

The museum, an Italian-born inflatable art project created by Lux Entertainment, described the exhibition as a “dreamlike” environment in which visitors move through a sequence of sensory works.

At the center of the exhibition is Abramović’s previously announced Snowy / Windy / Spring on Planet Z, a new installation inspired by her childhood imagination. The work places visitors inside a glowing white environment with shoulder-high inflatable grass and artificial snow.

Creed, a Turner Prize winner, will be represented by Work No. 3883: Half the air in a given space, which fills a transparent greenhouse with hundreds of blue balloons.

Alex Schweder’s Our Breath, Her Joy features a mirrored ball installation with fabric-covered lungs that rise and fall as the piece “breathes,” while Thom Kubli’s Black Hole Horizon uses compressed air to release soap bubbles into the room.

Boris Acket’s There, Where I am Absent asks visitors to lie beneath an overhead mirror, where their reflections interact with a kinetic sculpture built around a single mechanical wing. And Karina Smigla-Bobinski has created ADA, in which visitors can move a helium-filled sphere covered with charcoal spikes through the room to leave marks on the walls and floor.

The exhibition will also include Hyperstudio’s 10 Agosto, inspired by the Italian tradition of looking for shooting stars on the feast day of Saint Lawrence, and Valerio Berruti’s The Carousel, which reimagines a carousel through larger-than-life fiberglass birds.

“Daydream speaks to a culture that has made escape and emotional intensity part of everyday life,” Valentino Catricalà, curator of the exhibition, said in a statement. He said the show uses “the ephemeral monumentality of air” to create spaces that hold visitors “in a state of wonder.”

The Balloon Museum said its New York venue will also support public programming and year-round initiatives at the Seaport. The Tin Building, a former Fulton Fish Market structure, had most recently housed a Jean-Georges Vongerichten food hall, which closed earlier this year.

Tickets are scheduled to go on sale on Monday. Adult admission begins at $40. Tickets for ages 13 to 17, seniors and adults with disabilities begin at $33, while children’s tickets begin at $26.