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Art

A Parade of Earthly Delights: Floating Bosch Parade Celebrates Painter Hieronymus Bosch in Spectacular Aquatic Event

A floating parade dedicated to painter Hieronymus Bosch (previously) honors the artist’s fascination with the fantastical and absurd in an annual event that embodies his philosophy and aesthetic. The 2019 occurrence of the Bosch Parade included a musical performance played on a partially submerged piano and a scene with two people straddling enormous horns, just two of fourteen vignettes devoted to an evolving story about “power and counterforce, battle and rapprochement, chaos and hope.”

Bosch is known for his symbolic paintings often tying in gruesome representations of the afterlife and human desire and fear. He is also regarded as one of the earliest genre painters, depicting common people and their everyday experiences. The annual Bosch Parade is described by organizers as “a theatrical and musical art spectacle on water,” drawing thousands of visitors to the southern city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, where Bosch was born and eventually got his name from.

Until the next parade kicks off on June 17, 2021, stay up to date with the striking floats planned for the next event on Instagram and YouTube. (via Design You Trust)

Art

An Enormous Red Sun Will Shine Above the Streets of New York in Thanksgiving Parade Balloon by Yayoi Kusama

If you haven’t had a chance to experience a Yayoi Kusama piece in person, the iconic Japanese artist will be debuting a sun-themed balloon in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Kusama (previously), whose wide-ranging work across a long career includes her wildly popular infinity rooms and large-scale polka dotted objects, has designed “Love Flies Up to the Sky” to be floated along the streets of Manhattan. The red balloon, hand-painted with white and yellow dots and a blue face, joins “more than 1,500 dancers and cheerleaders, close to 1,000 clowns, almost 30 parade floats, and a dozen marching bands,” according to NYCTourist.com. Kusama is the first female artist to be commissioned by the parade to create a ballon as part of their Blue Sky Gallery program, joining a roster that has included KAWS, Jeff Koons, Tim Burton, and FriendsWithYou, among others. (via Hyperallergic)

Update: The Kusama balloon was grounded because of weather.

Art Design

The Annual ‘Corso Zundert’ Flower Parade Features Radically Designed Floats Adorned with Dahlias

Founded in 1936, the annual Corso Zundert parade is a celebration of the Netherlands’ most iconic exports: flowers. The event is held every year in the small town of Zundert where 20 teams of volunteers from different hamlets compete for the best designed parade float. More than being covered almost completely in vibrant dahlia flowers, the float designs often incorporate moving elements and are accompanied by marching bands and other performers along the parade route.

This year’s winner titled “Dangerous Transportation” featured a giant dragon and was designed by the Tiggelaar hamlet. You can see a full listing of all 20 parade floats here.

More photos of the 2016 event were shot by John DG Photography, and you can watch a video of the entire parade below. See our coverage of previous years: 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

Art

Towering Wooden Set Pieces and Combustible Monuments by Manolo Garcia

Spanish artist Manolo Garcia constructs towering replicas of renaissance-era sculptures, portraits, animals, and other decorative objects from his expansive workshop in Valencia, Spain. Garcia refers to his practice as ‘artistic carpentry’ and by looking at process photos of the studio’s work, that seems like a fair descriptor. Most of the set pieces, monuments, and sculptures built by Garcia begin with strips of wood that are applied to large architectural armature. The objects are usually so large they are first built in pieces and later assembled on-site.

Last March, Garcia participated in the annual Las Fallas (Fire Festival) in Valencia where a series of large artworks are set on fire at night as part of a Burning Man-esque spectacle. To be fair, the Fallas festivals in their current format pre-date the popular Nevada festival by about 44 years, and may have originated as far back as the Middle Ages.

You can see much more of Garcia’s work in this gallery. (via Juxtapoz, Artnau)

Art Design

The Annual ‘Corso Zundert’ Parade Honors Van Gogh with Monumental Floats Adorned with Flowers

Another year, another Corso Zundert (previously), the legendary parade of giant floats adored with thousands of dahlia flowers that twist through the narrow streets of Zundert, Netherlands. This year 19 teams took inspiration from the work of Vincent van Gogh who was born in Zundert 162 years ago. The towering floats borrow colors, motifs, and imagery from van Gogh’s painting including several interpretations of the artist’s self-portraits.

Started in 1936, the parade celebrates the region’s reputation as a global supplier of dahlia flowers, an area now covering 33 hectares (81 acres) of 600,000 dahlia bulbs in fifty different species. The first Corso Zundert parades were modest in size featuring horse-drawn carts or bicycles covered in flowers, but the event has since grown dramatically. The floats now merge more ambitious aspects of contemporary/urban art with traditional parade floats as part of a friendly annual competition. You can see plenty more photos over on BN DeStem.

Art

Parade Floats Adorned with Thousands of Dahlia Flowers at Corso Zundert 2014

Yes, it’s that time of year again for the world’s largest flower parade, Corso Zundert in the Netherlands! Located in the small town of Zundert at the Belgian border, the annual parade features 20 giant floats created by various districts within the city. To encourage a wide breadth of creativity the parade never has a theme, leaving teams free to design whatever they want as long as the floats fit the within 20 x 10 meters and are completely adorned with dahlia flowers.

This year the parade saw everything from a deconstructed 737 airliner to a guitar-playing cephalopod, with the first place prize awarded to the brawny flexing horse float, Horsepower.

If you want to explore a bit more, there are more photos of the 2014 event courtesy Omroep Brabant, and you can also see our Corso Zundert coverage in 2013 and beyond.