White Cloud
If you’ve been following our blog and came to the fabulous Summer Solstice Party, you may have noticed something amiss. Incredible music acts? Check. Gallery previews? Check. Revelers dancing the night away? Check. But where was the mysterious art installation?
The day before the party, following months of work behind the scenes, Mark Reigelmän and the team from Cleveland Public Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art worked late into the night to put the piece together. In the early hours of the morning, their work finally completed, the satisfied group members put down their tools and headed off to catch some z’s before the big event, leaving behind a 20-foot-tall sculpture built of 100 eight-foot chloroprene weather balloons across the façade of the museum’s 1916 building.
Upon returning to the museum on the morning of the event, the group discovered that brutal winds had destroyed the work overnight.
We’ll let the pictures, taken early Friday morning, speak for themselves. Suffice it to say it’s a great shame that Solstice partygoers weren’t able to enjoy this incredible and atmospheric piece at the event.
The installation, titled White Cloud, was the creation of New York-based artist Mark Reigelmän. Reigelmän, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, was inspired by clouds as objects that provide beautiful and effective shields from the harsh summer sun on the year’s longest day. The sculpture extended more than 100 feet across the museum grounds and hovered 20 feet above them, adding a playful complement to the building’s formality. Locally based Vincent Lighting Systems collaborated with the artist to create dramatic lighting installations that were planned to evolve throughout the evening.