Coachella’s standout installations
Coachella Weekend 1 showcased large immersive artworks like Sabine Marcelis’s 'Maze' and Kyriakos Chatziparaskevas’s 'Starry Eyes', foregrounding light, transparency and monumentality in the desert site (archdaily.com). Photo coverage captured how installations were integrated with performance moments, including drone displays and stage work across the festival grounds (mercurynews.com).
Coachella’s first weekend turned its Indio grounds into a walk-through design show, with inflatable, glowing and tower-like installations built for shade by day and light by night. (coachella.com) The 2026 festival ran April 10 to 12 at the Empire Polo Club, with a second weekend scheduled for April 17 to 19. Coachella’s art program this year centered on three newly commissioned works by Sabine Marcelis, Kyriakos Chatziparaskevas and The Los Angeles Design Group. (coachella.com, artsy.net) Marcelis’s “Maze” used inflated curved PVC forms in a yellow-to-red gradient to create shaded paths and resting areas that glow after dark. Marcelis told Dezeen she wanted the piece to change over the day, serving as “coloured walls of shade” in the sun and an internally lit draw at night. (archinect.com, dezeen.com) Kyriakos Chatziparaskevas’s “Starry Eyes” translated the golden barrel cactus into a cluster of geometric towers, some rising nearly 40 feet. Visitors could step inside for shade during the day and look up through star-shaped openings that lit up after sunset. (artsy.net, archinect.com) The third new commission, “Visage Brut,” came from The Los Angeles Design Group with Stud-IO Construction and took the form of a modular steel tower. Archinect described it as stacked steel elements balancing structural function with a face-like, totemic presence. (archinect.com) Raffi Lehrer of Public Art Company organized the 2026 art program with Goldenvoice art director Paul Clemente. Lehrer said the works were chosen to be entered, sat beneath and wandered through, rather than treated only as backdrops. (artsy.net) That approach fits how Coachella describes its art program on its official site: as large-scale landmarks and public spaces spread across the field, meant to be seen from multiple vantage points as crowds move between stages. Goldenvoice also describes the festival itself as mixing music with a substantial selection of art installations from around the world. (coachella.com, goldenvoice.com) Photo coverage from Weekend 1 showed the installations folded into the festival’s broader spectacle, alongside stage sets, fashion shots and aerial effects. The Mercury News’s April 13 gallery framed the art as part of the same visual field as the performances across the grounds. (mercurynews.com) Coachella has also been building an afterlife for some of these pieces beyond the festival dates. Artsy reported that several past works have found permanent homes nearby, including Stephanie Lin’s 2025 installation “Taffy,” which is headed to Palm Desert Park later this year. (artsy.net) Weekend 2 opens April 17 with the same desert light, and these pieces are set up to change with it again. In Coachella’s 2026 art program, the main materials were not only steel, PVC and fabric, but sun, shadow and the hour of the day. (coachella.com, dezeen.com)
