WHY CAN'T PEOPLE FLY
Venice, Black Rock City, Doha
"Sometimes art stops you in your tracks and makes you rethink reality." (Insider.com)
You really can't pass by this sculpture and not stop: the gigantic figure of a man flipped upside-down, who's trying to float up into the air but can't because the weight of his problems is dragging him down. And we all live in a new reality—it's not just this man who's turned upside-down, it's the entire world.
"Why Can't People Fly" — a 10-meter-tall statue — was first showcased in public space at the 2019 Venice Biennale. After that, it was sent to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada.
We often see people holding balloons in their hands — they walk around the streets keeping the balloons from flying away. But what we have in this sculpture is the opposite — the balloons aren't letting the man fly. They are too heavy to lift off the ground, because they are filled with daily problems, worries and anxieties, as well as the waste we produce. These balloons are filled with plastic trash that was collected across 150 countries by volunteers, whom the artist attracted to the project on his Instagram page.
The sculpture has already been showcased in Italy, France, Monaco, USA, Russia and Qatar. It has become a symbol and an ominous prophecy — in 2020, the entire world was flipped upside-down.
Vasily Klyukin talks about the eight (7+1) sins of mankind, the 8th being pollution. He discusses the problems that are weighing us all down mentally and physically, not letting us lift off the grown in pursuit of our dreams. There's no need to approach the sculpture to understand the meaning the artist is trying to relay — every person who sees it will have a different perception, and a complete change in the understanding of the usual and the mundane. They will have their own reasons for why the man can't fly and why he's upside-down.
You really can't pass by this sculpture and not stop: the gigantic figure of a man flipped upside-down, who's trying to float up into the air but can't because the weight of his problems is dragging him down. And we all live in a new reality—it's not just this man who's turned upside-down, it's the entire world.
"Why Can't People Fly" — a 10-meter-tall statue — was first showcased in public space at the 2019 Venice Biennale. After that, it was sent to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada.
We often see people holding balloons in their hands — they walk around the streets keeping the balloons from flying away. But what we have in this sculpture is the opposite — the balloons aren't letting the man fly. They are too heavy to lift off the ground, because they are filled with daily problems, worries and anxieties, as well as the waste we produce. These balloons are filled with plastic trash that was collected across 150 countries by volunteers, whom the artist attracted to the project on his Instagram page.
The sculpture has already been showcased in Italy, France, Monaco, USA, Russia and Qatar. It has become a symbol and an ominous prophecy — in 2020, the entire world was flipped upside-down.
Vasily Klyukin talks about the eight (7+1) sins of mankind, the 8th being pollution. He discusses the problems that are weighing us all down mentally and physically, not letting us lift off the grown in pursuit of our dreams. There's no need to approach the sculpture to understand the meaning the artist is trying to relay — every person who sees it will have a different perception, and a complete change in the understanding of the usual and the mundane. They will have their own reasons for why the man can't fly and why he's upside-down.