Watch above: An international art exhibit, involving a gigantic travelling red ball, rolls through Montreal. Global’s Billy Shields has more.
MONTREAL – Artist Kurt Perschke spoke to reporters Sunday in front of a giant red ball jammed between the walls of the Biosphere and the railing of the building within.
Although the ball looks like it could be an accident of some sort, it’s actually an art installation Perschke has brought to Montreal over the next week called the RedBall Project.
“For me the project is going through that place and playing with the city, and thinking about what it means to look at your city,” said Perschke.
“People will come up to you and you have an idea of where it might go.”
As he spoke, tourists pushed, felt, and poked the ball – a five-metre-wide red sphere weighing almost 300 pounds.
The installation quickly became the backdrop for myriad selfies.
“At that moment they’re just taking it on their own space,” said Perschke.
“Some people will go up to it and take a picture. Some people just want to hear a story of how it’s moving around the world.”
Montreal is the twentieth city the ball has visited.
It’s already gone as far afield as the United Kingdom, Taipei and Barcelona.
Perschke says his most frequent challenge is getting permissions from city officials in the places he visits; ironically his hometown of New York has so far not allowed him to put the ball up.
“When you’re in a museum you know how to react to art when you’re in an art gallery you know how to react to art,” said Mel Hague, a visitor from Toronto.
“But this kind of work, you get to see people react to seeing something totally out of place.”
The ball is scheduled to be in Place des Arts on Labour Day, and at Berson Monuments on Saint-Laurent the day after.
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