Rosemary Mayer (1943-2014)

Connections (Los Angeles), 1978-2023

Balloons, helium, India ink, ribbons, silk, chiffon, string, metallic streamers

Promenade Terrace at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Beverly Hills, California

Saturday, November 11, 2023

1:00-4:00 PM

Organized by the Estate of Rosemary Mayer with Hannah Hoffman Gallery and Marc Selwyn Fine Art. Concurrent with the Rosemary Mayer exhibition “Noon Has No Shadows” at Marc Selwyn Fine Art and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, on view from November 12 – December 23.

Balloons dedicated by: h / e / li / os (Hannah O'Brien, Ei Arakawa-Nash, Liz Berger, Oscar Corona), Guadalupe Rosales, Nancy Stella Soto, Barbara T. Smith, and Martine Syms.

Connections (Los Angeles) is a continuation of Rosemary Mayer’s practice of making ephemeral installations with balloons. Mayer intended these installations, part of a larger body of work that she called “temporary monuments,” to celebrate and memorialize individuals and communities and to create connections to time, place, and history.

Connections (Los Angeles) draws from a close study of Mayer’s archive and documentation of her past installations with balloons. It is inspired by an unrealized proposal from 1978, called Connections, for which she planned to invite people to dedicate balloons to someone important to them and then collectively decorate and launch the balloons. As with all of her installations with balloons, each balloon had a series of words and numbers written on it: the name of the person, a date associated with them, and a star in the sky and a flower blooming on and around that date.

For this iteration, five artists based in Los Angeles were invited to dedicate a balloon to a person of their choosing. Based on the date associated with each person, the brightest star in the sky and a flower native to California was chosen. On the day of the event, the balloons were inflated and moored and painted with these names and dates. The balloons were then decorated with the help of the artists.

Dedications

Balloon for Richard

Richard 

11 

Sirius 

Chaparral Currant

Barbara T. Smith dedicates a balloon to her son Richard Allen Smith, who was born on January 11, 1954.

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and is quite prominent in the winter. It is part of the constellation Canis Majoris and is also known as the Dog Star. Its name is from the Latin, meaning glowing.

Chaparral Currant is a shrub that grows in woodlands and chaparrals along the coast of California. It is well-known for its pink and purple flowers that appear beginning in December and attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

Balloon for Estelita

Estelita

31

Capella

Poppy

Nancy Stella Soto dedicates a balloon to her mother Estelita, who was born on March 31, 1953.

Capella is one of the brightest stars in the sky, part of the constellation Auriga, and an important star for navigation. Its name means “little female goat” in Latin, which is related to both Greek and Bedouin ideas of constellations as groups of animals and Auriga as a herd of goats.

The California Poppy is the state flower. It blooms beginning in early spring throughout the state in open areas and along roadsides and is celebrated for its bright orange flowers and delicate structure.

Balloon for Negin

Negin

2024

Altair

Fuchsia

Martine Syms dedicates a balloon to her friend Negin, whose next birthday will be on October 15, 2024.

Altair is one of the brightest stars in the sky and part of the constellation Aquila, the eagle. It forms the center in a line of three stars that represents the bird’s wings. Its name derives from the Arabic phrase meaning “the flying eagle.”

The California Fuchsia begins blooming at the height of summer and continues into the fall, one of the only flowers remaining by October. Its scarlet-red flowers are very attractive to hummingbirds.

Balloon for bel

bel

15

Aldebran

Shining Starwort

The collective h / e / li / os (Hannah O'Brien, Ei Arakawa-Nash, Liz Berger, Oscar Corona) dedicate a balloon to bel hooks, who died on December 15, 2021.

Aldebran is the brightest start in the constellation Taurus, forming the eye of the bull. The name derives from Arabic and means “the follower” because the star seems to follow the nearby star cluster known as the Pleiades.

Shining Starwort, also known as Shining Chickweed, is a common wildflower that is found in much of California. It is named for its small star-like flowers that start to appear in December.

Balloon for Ever

Ever

21

Polaris

Toyon

Guadalupe Rosales dedicates a balloon to her cousin Ever, who died on December 21, 1996.

Polaris, the North Star, is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as The Little Bear or The Little Dipper. It has long been essential to navigation because of its fixed location, with all the other stars appearing to revolve around it.

Toyon is a shrub that grows throughout coastal chaparrals and canyons. Although it blooms in the summer, it is most well-known for its bright red berries that are prominent during the winter and are important food for birds. The name likely derives from the Ohlone, the Native Americans who lived along the coast of Northern California.

Video of Connections (Los Angeles) shot and compiled by Lucas Horowitz with Narration by Marie Warsh.

Acknowledgements

The Estate of Rosemary Mayer would like to thank the Wallis Center for the Performing Arts for hosting Connections and to Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Hannah Hoffman Gallery, and Gordon Robichaux for all their help and support of this project. Thank you to James Walsh for planning and technical assistance, to Matt Paweski and Eric Renteria for their help creating the balloon monuments, and to Philip Good for hosting our various test runs of the project. We are also grateful for the participating artists for the dedications, for launching the balloons and creating all these new connections.