The RedBall project

Artist Kurt Perschke’s RedBall Project, an ongoing site-specific installation, has been traveling the globe, adopting cities as its canvas. From Barcelona to Busan to Sydney, the sculptural performance has garnered public, critical and media attention worldwide. From September 1 – 25, 2008, The RedBall Project Chicago sponsored by Target will migrate throughout Chicago’s unique architectural landscape and history – each location carefully considered by the artist. Site locations include Millennium Park, Spertus Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, IIT’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center, the Chicago Cultural Center, and more. The RedBall will also be found atop bridges and wedged into alleys, as Perschke’s decisions address not only architecture and urban space, but also anticipate the flow of people, traffic and the observer’s eye.
Compressed into each site, the 15-foot inflatable sphere changes its own shape as well as the space it inhabits, directly reflecting our experience of metropolitan density. Perschke conceives that RedBall is “a surrogate to our own body’s navigation of urban environment and ultimately a transferable act of imagination.” His interest is presenting the public with a momentary experience in their every day. He adds, “In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of creativity. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project. And like all good sculpture, the RedBall Project brings out the impulse to touch.”