Unsui (Mirror) by Sanford Biggers, Desert X 2025, Coachella Valley, California
Sanford Biggers is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses painting, sculpture, video, photography, music, and performance. As an artistic intermediary, he disrupts established narratives, weaving U.S. history into broader global frameworks. By remixing cultural symbols and intervening in historical forms, he complicates collective mythologies and reimagines traditions. His work reflects personal experiences, from his early engagement with graffiti art in Los Angeles to his time living in Japan, shaping his ability to bridge disparate cultural and historical contexts.
Unsui (Mirror) features two towering sequin sculptures set against the expansive desert sky. Clouds, a recurring motif in Biggers’ work, symbolize freedom, boundlessness, and interconnection. Drawing on Biggers’ study of Buddhism, these clouds — or unsui (“clouds and water” in Japanese) — embody unencumbered movement. Shimmering in the desert light, they evoke a feeling of timelessness and transcendence.
Desert X is produced by The Desert Biennial, a not-for-profit organization founded in California, conceived to produce recurring international contemporary art exhibitions that activate desert locations through site-specific installations by acclaime…
