Black Cloud is a 100ft-tall, eight-ton Ukrainian inflatable sculpture composed of 45 interconnected forms holding 90,000 cubic feet of air. The work featured twenty strobe lights and a soundscape of missiles, sirens and explosions composed by Anatoly Tapolsky. The installation premiered in Kyiv in June with an edited soundscape to avoid traumatising residents and was exhibited at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert. A hurricane-force dust storm on 24 August destroyed the work on the festival’s opening day, coinciding with Ukrainian Independence Day, and the piece is now being rebuilt.
Black Cloud (2025), a Ukrainian installation at the Burning Man festival in Nevada warning of dark times ahead for the entire world, is being rebuilt after it was blown away by a hurricane-force dust storm on 24 August. The storm on the festival's opening day in the Black Rock Desert coincided with Ukrainian Independence Day, adding another metaphoric layer to the 100ft-tall, eight-ton inflatable sculpture by the artist , which was funded by private donors from Ukraine and the US.
It is composed of 45 interconnected forms filled with 90,000 cubic feet of air. Twenty strobe lights were mounted to flash like lightening around the structure, set to a soundscape of missiles, sirens and explosions merged into a composition by the war veteran and musician Anatoly Tapolsky, known as . The installation premiered in Kyiv in early June, with an edited soundscape to avoid traumatising residents.
"I simply see something appearing on the horizon and have a certain freedom to engage with what looms there because I am independent and can dedicate myself to things that may not seem important at first glance," Sai tells The Art Newspaper. "That is the essence of an artist's work-to work on what will become significant a little later." He adds that "sometimes reality overtakes me, rather than the other way around".
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