{"id":2391976,"date":"2026-04-27T21:21:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2391976"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:21:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:21:59","slug":"the-architects-of-coachella-how-five-artists-reshaped-25-years-of-the-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-architects-of-coachella-how-five-artists-reshaped-25-years-of-the-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"The architects of Coachella: How five artists reshaped 25 years of the festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

You may not have noticed, but it\u2019s right there in the name: \u201cand Arts.\u201d As in, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.<\/p>\n

Since 1999 \u2014 more than two decades as America\u2019s most culturally influential music festival \u2014 music has dominated the spotlight at Coachella. Within the three-day festival is an immersive gallery staged over two weekends in April at Indio\u2019s Empire Polo Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe polo field is the ultimate blank canvas,\u201d festival co-founder Paul Tollett said in the intro to the festival\u2019s 2006 documentary, \u201cCoachella: The Film.\u201d \u201cWhite tents. Green grass. Blue skies. The mountains. There\u2019s not many things cluttering it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coachella\u2019s foundational art scene had a DIY aesthetic, with early pieces including trash cans, alien sculptures and a Tesla coil. Commissions have changed over the years, allowing modern visionaries \u2014 art houses and creatives from across the globe \u2014 to showcase grand spectacles.<\/p>\n

Artists are selected by a team led by Coachella Art Director Paul Clemente in collaboration with Raffi Lehrer. There is no open call or application. The pool is kept intentionally small, with just 12 to 16 proposals from 10 to 12 artists up for consideration each year. Each artist has roughly a 1 in 5 chance of being selected, said Lehrer, festival promoter, Goldenvoice\u2019s curatorial advisor to the art program and the founder of Public Art Company in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

He said Goldenvoice searches for iconic works that will define the year, working with artists \u201cready to do something they\u2019ve never done before\u201d in \u201cnew mediums, new techniques and new ways of thinking.\u201d The art has to fit the festival\u2019s audience and \u201chave the form, the color, the dynamism, the ability to connect instantly\u201d with people who may have never been to an art gallery before.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpportunities to create at this scale are extraordinarily rare,\u201d Lehrer said. \u201cMost artists will never have a platform like this \u2014 a captive audience of 125,000, an open sky, no walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at five artists whose works have left an indelible mark on Coachella over the years.<\/p>\n

\"Coachella <\/p>\n
\n

Coachella artist Emek standing in front of a wall of his posters<\/p>\n

(Sarah Crocker)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

EMEK, COACHELLA POSTERS (2007-PRESENT)<\/b><\/p>\n

Portland, Ore.-based Emek was already dubbed \u201cThe Thinking Man\u2019s Poster Artist\u201d by punk icon Henry Rollins years before he became Coachella\u2019s resident illustrator in 2007. Festival organizers were searching for someone to create pieces similar to those at the New Orleans Jazz Festival when they saw his Musichead Gallery show featured on \u201cLast Call With Carson Daly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based in L.A. at the time, Emek was widely recognized for his blend of organic and industrial elements, establishing himself as a prolific concert poster artist. He already collaborated with Pearl Jam, Beastie Boys, The Prodigy, Phish, Radiohead, Tool and Queens of the Stone Age by the time he signed with Goldenvoice.<\/p>\n

Growing up in a family of artists, Emek was inspired by the art clippings and 1960s rock, opera and World War II propaganda posters in his dad\u2019s studio. From an early age he formed a clear viewpoint that has affected his work for decades: \u201cCool art should have text in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His debut piece for Coachella captured a pastel desert with a giant California poppy-turned-Venus flytrap, its long stem ending in a stylus on a record player rooted in a tree stump. The festival\u2019s mountains and palm trees are in the background. The word \u201cCoachella\u201d is placed in free-flowing sprawl across the top, punctuated with a forest green gradient and bright orange stroke.<\/p>\n

Emek dedicates February and March to focus on Coachella\u2019s poster, creating radical variation throughout the years while sticking to a few guidelines: No people. The art must include the San Jacinto Mountains. And there\u2019s always a hummingbird, designed \u201clike a mechanical Faberg\u00e9 egg,\u201d hidden among the art.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Coachella, it\u2019s just something that always comes back,\u201d Emek said. \u201cIt\u2019s a symbol of hope and life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the festival\u2019s 25th anniversary (it went dark in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic), Emek has taken an element from every poster he\u2019s done for Coachella and compiled them into a single piece.<\/p>\n

He draws the art by hand in sections, then scans it into a computer to color in layers. It\u2019s output to film and screenprinted by longtime collaborator D&L Screen Printing in Seattle.<\/p>\n

Emek posters are printed in the low hundreds for a festival serving tens of thousands, and sold for $150 to $250 depending on the variant. They\u2019re treated like fine art by collectors. Some pieces, including his Coachella astronaut, mountain lion and turtle, are now listed for thousands in online forums and on eBay.<\/p>\n

\"Robert <\/p>\n
\n

Robert Bose, creator of Coachella\u2019s Balloon Chain<\/p>\n

(Niyaz Pirani)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

ROBERT BOSE, \u2018BALLOON CHAIN\u2019 (2010)<\/b><\/p>\n

The first time New Jersey resident Robert Bose went to Coachella, he was part of the crew doing stage effects for New York electroclash duo Fischerspooner. He didn\u2019t see much of the art, but the searchlights around the perimeter of the venue \u2014 which came together in a single point above the festival \u2014 made an impression on him.<\/p>\n

Two years later, amid the dusty chaos of Burning Man on the Black Rock Playa in Nevada, Bose looked toward the sky once again and had a life-changing thought. He tied several balloons to two bikes so he and his girlfriend could still find each other at a distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked straight up and it\u2019s just going … 35, 40, 50 feet in the sky,\u201d he said. \u201cI just did that in a few minutes. What if I did that for an hour or two or three? How far into the sky could I go?\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at camp he compiled a chain of 100 balloons as people stopped to see it. The balloons became an annual practice after that.<\/p>\n

In 2009, he came across the Coachella documentary on DVD in the bargain bin at a record store that was closing. Having not ventured into the festival when he was there, Bose was impressed by the realization that \u201cwhoever\u2019s doing their art definitely goes to Burning Man.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knew Goldenvoice was producing the 2009 All Points West festival in New Jersey, so two weeks before the festival he approached its art curator at the time, Philip Blaine, with his proposal for \u201cBalloon Chain.\u201d It was accepted.<\/p>\n

A year later, \u201cBalloon Chain\u201d debuted at Coachella 2010 and has been a staple of the festival every year, except during COVID-19 closures in 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n

It takes a crew of 18 to create and operate the mobile piece, which dots the desert sky from 4 p.m. to Coachella\u2019s end each night.<\/p>\n

It takes up to 120 biodegradable Tuftext-brand latex balloons spaced about 12 feet apart to create the chain, Bose said. They use about 900 balloons over both weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day we have to start fresh \u2018cause … the helium starts seeping through [the balloons] and so they lose their lift over time,\u201d Bose said. \u201cIt\u2019s so crazy that we can build something so big and impactful but with minimal supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of Indio, the chain has flown for several years at Corona Capital in Mexico City, and exhibited in countries including Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Portugal. Bose and crew have even been hired for a few celebrity birthdays and weddings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat some little idea of me putting some balloons on my bicycle ends up being a cultural thing \u2014 and instantly recognizable as the Coachella balloons \u2014 it never gets old,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n
\n

A nearly 40-foot tall astronaut \u201cEscape Velocity\u201d by Poetic Kinetics, a L.A. based art collective is reflected in \u201cReflection Fields\u201d by Phillip K. Smith as it roams through the crowd at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival April 11, 2014 in Indio. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

POETIC KINETICS, \u2018ESCAPE VELOCITY\u2019 (2014) and \u2018OVERVIEW EFFECT\u2019 (2019)<\/b><\/p>\n

Imagination was never the limiting factor for Poetic Kinetics creative director Patrick Shearn\u2019s fourth project for Coachella. It was the physical materials he had access to at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was driven by the largest size hemisphere I could get in acrylic to make the visor,\u201d Shearn, based in Colorado, said. \u201cI think it was a 10-foot diameter … everything kind of flowed back from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pulled from experiences with the raptor team on \u201cJurassic Park,\u201d producing giant puppetry and animatronics at the Beijing Olympics, and building towering metal flowers at Burning Man and EDC to create \u201cEscape Velocity\u201d \u2014 known by most as the Coachella astronaut.<\/p>\n

Shearn and a team of about 15 modeled the astronaut around the shape of a forklift and constructed its wire frame in their L.A. studio. The threads in the suit were handmade to be 10 times bigger than normal with oversized yarn. An aluminum truss provided infrastructure, and custom joints, gimbals and animatronics gave the astronaut life.<\/p>\n

Standing 36 feet tall, 57 feet long and 40 feet wide at final build, the piece was shipped to the festival in five loads to keep the fabric as pristine as possible. It was assembled for the first time on the polo field.<\/p>\n

A team of nearly 50 supported operations during the festival as the astronaut roved the grounds at a speed of less than five miles an hour. Projection mapping allowed festivalgoers to see their own faces on the visor\u2019s display. Paired with video sourced from NASA, it left the audience transfixed. Shearn did 95% of the driving, all with zero visibility, using a noise-canceling helicopter headset.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did crash Fatboy Slim. We went into the Sahara Tent,\u201d he said. \u201cWe drove all the way in there. What are they gonna do? Kick us out?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Coachella\u2019s 20th anniversary in 2019, Goldenvoice contacted Poetic Kinetics to bring the astronaut back. They called the second build \u201cOverview Effect\u201d after the \u201ccognitive shift in awareness\u201d experienced when viewing Earth from space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came to this idea that it had come back through the atmosphere and had been scorched and burnt,\u201d Shearn said of the design, which was adorned with festival wristbands and a VIP lanyard in alien languages. \u201c… It had gone on this tour of the galaxy\u2019s festivals and here it was back in the home festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poetic Kinetics strategy director Marnie Sehayek said the astronaut became part of the Coachella brand as the \u201cmost photographed art piece in the festival\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt broke through in a way that continues to impact the way that the festival is interpreted and the way that the festival communicates with the fans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Today, \u201cEscape Velocity\u201d is part of the permanent collection at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, where it towers between the first and second floors, and sees hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. \u201cOverview Effect\u201d was purchased by the festival. Poetic Kinetics is contracted to display it if requested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got no problem here, Houston,\u201d Shearn said of a third outing. \u201cJust give us a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n
\n

People walk up the spectra art installation at Coachella on Friday, April 14, 2023 in Coachella Valley, CA.<\/p>\n

(Dania Maxwell\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

NEWSUBSTANCE, \u2018SPECTRA\u2019 (2018)<\/b><\/p>\n

Physicality has always been the core driver for NewSubstance, the Leeds, U.K.-based creative studio responsible for Coachella\u2019s most colorful, permanent landmark \u2014 the seven-story viewing tower \u201cSpectra.\u201d<\/p>\n

NewSubstance utilizes over 20 years of experience to forge public art from a variety of immense canvases including a North Sea oil rig, Baku\u2019s Olympic Stadium in Azerbaijan, and even the night sky above the Secret Garden Party in Cambridge, England.<\/p>\n

Inspired by the global reach and scale of Poetic Kinetics\u2019 \u201cEscape Velocity,\u201d NewSubstance first arrived on the polo field in 2016 to brainstorm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe site is very flat. You can see three football pitches with no drama whatsoever,\u201d studio founder and Chief Creative Officer Patrick O\u2019Mahony said. \u201c… From the UK, we don\u2019t see many sunrises and sunsets like you have in the Coachella Valley. I was there one morning at 6 a.m. before all the audience arrived and there\u2019s this wash of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

The installation puts people inside that spectral array of color to capture the essence of those sunrises and sunsets. O\u2019Mahony drew the original sketch on the flight home from the fest. It took a team of about 40 to build \u201cSpectra,\u201d first in a workshop in Leeds before final assembly on the festival grounds.<\/p>\n

The tower uses 33 colors across 300 panels, made from the same toughened plastic used for fighter jet windscreens. A central steel core holds together 90 segments \u2014 \u201cslices of cheese\u201d as O\u2019Mahony called them \u2014 that repeat all the way to the top. Behind every roof beam is recessed LED lighting, with individual lighting control for every strand. Different programs are designed each year and run in a sequence once the sun sets.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Mahony considers the installation Coachella\u2019s accidental town hall. It was supposed to come down after the first year, but has cemented its legacy in the years since. \u201cSpectra\u201d has its own merch, and at least seven wedding proposals have occurred inside, he said. The tower was also memorialized in the cartoon \u201cFamily Guy\u201d \u2014 \u201cwhich blew all our minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever had there been a resident piece before,\u201d O\u2019Mahony said. \u201cIt did really well in terms of an identity for the show. It\u2019s just not gone away. I speak to them every year and go, \u2018Is it the last one?\u2019 And it\u2019s like, \u2018No.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n
\n

The Flemming brothers, creators of the DoLab<\/p>\n

(Courtesy of the DoLab)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Do LaB, \u2018MACROdose\u2019 (2023)<\/b><\/p>\n

Off-the-grid electronic music haven Do LaB always felt like another world hidden within Coachella. With its latest work, \u201cMACROdose,\u201d free-flowing fabrics create a mesmerizing stage presentation devoid of video screens and theatrics yet just as mesmerizing.<\/p>\n

Inspired by mushrooms, coral reefs and a renegade aesthetic influenced more by experience than formal education, it\u2019s the culmination of 25 years of learning and design for the Pennsylvania-born, California-based Flemming brothers.<\/p>\n

Josh and his brothers, Jesse and Dede, evolved from building forts, skate ramps and speakerboxes with their dad\u2019s tools as kids to attending Burning Man and crafting installations and stages at Coachella and Lightning in a Bottle \u2014 the rave-turned-festival the trio runs independently.<\/p>\n

The Do LaB first debuted under the name Lucent Misting Oasis at Coachella in 2005. The 60-foot geodesic dome provided a place for people to cool down and take in breakbeats, dubstep and, eventually, other electronic subgenres.<\/p>\n

The dome became a makeshift stage in the middle of the field. As the crowd swelled and the sound bled, Do LaB was moved to a far corner of the terrace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a couple years after that that Josh \u2026 started to really want to do something more architectural that was more like a structure and not art,\u201d Jesse said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig Fish\u201d was Do LaB\u2019s first overhead piece in 2015, followed by \u201cBeacon\u201d two years later. That design was rebuilt in three days between festival weekends in 2018 after being decimated by 50 mph winds. \u201cWarrior One,\u201d inspired by an Egyptian scarab, arrived a year later.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Josh spent a year working with a team to reinvent his style using familiar materials in a different fashion. They emerged with a multi-pod cluster built to withstand winds up to 90 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still building forts, we\u2019re just doing it at a large scale,\u201d Josh said. \u201cWe like to say this too: \u2018We\u2019re always just f\u2014 around.\u2019 We make fun for a living, but we don\u2019t f\u2014 around when we\u2019re f\u2014 around. We\u2019re taking it very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stage is booked with separate acts across both weekends by Jesse Flemming and his partner Megan Perez-Carpenter, senior producer of music and content for Do LaB.<\/p>\n

Do LaB receives hundreds of artist submissions each year, but just over 50 make the final cut. Just as many artists over the course of Do LaB\u2019s run have moved on to play bigger stages. Others including Skrillex, Odesza, R\u00fcf\u00fcs du Sol and Billie Eilish are among the superstars who have popped in for surprise sets, cementing the stage\u2019s legacy within Coachella\u2019s lore.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul T. told us once, \u2018The value of Coachella is incomprehensible.\u2019 He said that people have offered him insane amounts of money for Coachella. And he had to ask himself a question: \u2018If I had all the money in the world, what would I wanna buy?\u2019 His answer was always, \u2018I\u2019d want to buy Coachella,\u2019\u201d Dede Flemming said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how we feel too,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re already in the position of doing exactly what we would want to do if we had all the money in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may not have noticed, but it\u2019s right there in the name: \u201cand Arts.\u201d As in, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Since 1999 \u2014 more than two decades as America\u2019s most culturally influential music festival \u2014 music has dominated the spotlight at Coachella. Within the three-day festival is an immersive gallery staged over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2391977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2391976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-architects-of-Coachella-How-five-artists-reshaped-25-years.com2F0b2F8c2F3f1bf53745ad841e531bac91.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391978,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391976\/revisions\/2391978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2391977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}