What's Up? Inflatable fun when art joins the parade

  Max begged, I caved and I found myself on the subway, headed uptown to catch an hour of the Macy's Day parade. The payoff for me was that we arrived in time to see artist Takashi Murakami's balloon (his first) in the Macy's Day Parade yesterday. The spectacle of watching his Kakai and Kiki characters floating overhead, drifting quietly down Broadway was surreal in a Pillsbury-Doughboy-Ghostbusters-scene kind of way.  Bill Murray's line from that scene "Well there's something you don't see everyday,"sums up what's up Thanksgiving morning in NYC.

  You're gazing at a world famous familiar landscape: Times Square's north side with famous flashing coke sign, and suddenly it's obscured by a massive cartoon characther. The way-bigger-than-life scale of these floating creatures don't translate on TV, but when they loom out over and above you taking up the sky of Times Square--it's crazy dramatic---and strangely beautiful.

Max's motivation to go was a hair less artful, being currently obsessed with Victoria Justice (of show Victorious on Nickolodian) and HAD to see her sing on the Build-A-Bear float. My informing Max that she only performs in front of Macy's, which is blocked off to the general public and reserved for the company executives and their families and there was no way we would see her had zero effect. I countered with suggesting we run up, see some balloons and then go downtown and try to catch her on TV. That worked for him. We cozied ourselves up against a fence, facing uptown, on 40th street, where we could watch the balloons weave towards us down Broadway, then turn and go past us.

Past artists to have their art-balloons included in the parade have been Jeff Koons with his metallic, monochromatic blow-up bunny, based on his famous stainless steel sculpture in 2007 and Keith Haring's "Figure with a Heart" floated down the white way in 2008.

From the website Freshnessmag.com:
"The newest addition to the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year was Takashi Murakami – not only were Murakami’s Kakai and Kiki characters included in the parade, the designer himself was there, and was impossible to miss in an oversized furry flower suit – with a technicolor flower on his head, and a giant silver flower medallion on his chest. Murakami is a blue chip artist who recently took over the Palace at Versailles for a solo show – anyone who was questioning whether or not Murakami has earned a place in American pop culture, could simply look up on 7th Ave today, and see the artist’s work flying alongside Ronald McDonald."


http://www.freshnessmag.com/2010/11/26/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-with-takashi-murakami/

Gotta love it when art shows up, in all it's overblown glory, in some unexpected places, yet in the end makes so much sense. This duo were in fine company with the Pokemon character, Pikachu, who elicited more glass-breaking shrieks from the 1000's of kids gazing upward.

above: Pikachu peeks out from behind a building.

Spidey crawls by.

--Monica Forrestall