Curves and Zigzags by Claudia Comte, part of Desert X in 2017.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LANCE GERBER
Strange and wonderful curiosities appear across the Coachella Valley and down to the Salton Sea as the second iteration of Desert X unfolds. The biennial exhibition of site-specific art became a viral sensation in 2017 with more than 200,000 photographs shared on social media over the course of the exhibition. Who could forget Doug Aitken’s Mirage, better known as “the mirror house,” in Palm Springs; Will Boone’s Monument, a bomb shelter containing a life-size sculpture of John F. Kennedy, in Rancho Mirage; or Phillip K. Smith III’s Circle of Land and Sky in Palm Desert?
At press time, Desert X organizers were still hush-hush about this year’s participating artists, but artistic director Neville Wakefield says that he hosted artists from around the globe for site visits and selected proposals that respond in a compelling way to the land and lore of the Coachella Valley region.
The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, continues through April 21.
Desert X hubs in Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Sunday, and bus tours launch every Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Additionally, tours of the art installations inspired by architecture happen daily during Modernism Week (Feb. 14–24).
On Feb. 28, Wakefield moderates a conversation with artists Ed Ruscha and Andrea Zittel and curators JoAnne Northrup and Brooke Hodge. The program begins at 6 p.m. at Palm Springs Art Museum’s Annenberg Theater. — Steven Biller
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