Black and White Video, 2009, found balloon, three cubic yard dumpster, video, black and white, sound, total running time 1 minute and thirty seconds (balloon missing/destroyed). Project for Last Day of Magic, International Artists’ Museum Artura/Projective for Détournement, 2009 Venise, a collateral event of the 53rd Venice Biennale presented at ScalaMata Exhibition Space, Venice, Italy.
In the fall of 2008, a black balloon blew down Kent Street in Brooklyn, New York, and into my leg. I picked it up, took it to my studio, and bounced it between the studio wall and the front of a video camera. The balloon appears as a black shape on a white field, alternately decreasing in size, or occupying a progressively larger portion of the video camera frame, eventually hitting the front of the lens and blocking all light.
After I filmed the balloon, it sat on a shelf in my studio for five months, gradually shrinking, until I discarded it into the three cubic yard dumpster outside my door. Almost immediately after disposing of the deflated balloon, a friend asked if they could have it, so I climbed into the dumpster and with the assistance of a different friend I methodically emptied its contents into a number of large garbage bags.
Although we sifted through the refuse like meticulous archaeologists, we failed to locate the missing balloon. I checked each piece of trash as I returned it back into the dumpster; nevertheless, the absent balloon did not materialize. The black balloon drifted up to me, stayed for some months, and then vanished. Black & White Video and several images are all the remaining proof of the balloon.
