RedBall is a traveling public art piece by American artist Kurt Perschke. Considered “the world’s longest-running street art work” the piece has been to over 40 cities globally and moves through a city with a new site each day of the performance.
Installing at Sheik Zayed Bridge by Zaha Hadid for RedBall Abu Dhabi
“ Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday. Through the magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of the RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine what if?
As RedBall travels around the world people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. I have witnessed it across continents, diverse age spans, cultures, and languages, always issuing an invitation.
That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project. The larger arc of the project is how each city responds to that invitation and, over time, what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination. Ultimately RedBall is about people.”
- Kurt Perschke
Kurt Perschke is an artist who works in sculpture, video, collage and public space. His most acclaimed work, RedBall Project, is a traveling public art project that has taken place in over 40 cities including Abu Dhabi, Taipei, Perth, England, Barcelona, St. Louis, Korea, Portland, Sydney, Arizona, Chicago and Toronto, and received a National Award from Americans for the Arts Public Art Network.
RedBall has been avidly followed by the media, appearing in over a thousand media outlets including magazines, television, newspaper and radio. In addition to RedBall, Perschke has completed commissions for several institutions including The Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, the Vienna Technical Museum, and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. His video work has been screened in Europe and the US, and at the Bronx Museum during his time as an AIM Fellow. Born in Chicago, Kurt Perschke has also lived in the Virgin Islands, St. Louis, Vienna, and Cairo, Egypt. After 15+ years in NYC he currently lives and works in Asheville, NC.
Early career interview at Urban Institute For Contemporary Arts (UICA). Also interviewed for the RedBall UK Olympic tour documentary.