Location: Los Angeles, California

Artist: Jonathan Borofsky

This installation includes five realistic, 3-dimensional figures "flying" throughout the lower section of the Civic Center Station in downtown Los Angeles. Included as part of this installation is a sound system which intermittently plays an occasional lonely bird sound.

Like many people, I have had quite a few flying dreams in my life. I can remember some rather fearful ones way back when I was a child, where I was almost falling or tumbling through space - out of control. And I can remember other, more recent, positive flying dreams where I am flying high up in the air and looking down to see the earth as one organic whole unit - connected in space to the rest of the universe.

I began drawing and painting my flying dreams in 1971. Early 3-dimensional life size cut-out flying figures were first developed in my studio in 1976 and 1978. As part of my installation, I "flew" my first figure up in the skylight of the Portland Center For The Visual Arts in 1979. And in 1981, I carved two full-scale realistic, 3-dimensional figures (not cut-outs) which were hung as part of my installation at the Kunsthalle in Basel and later, the next year, as part of my installation at the Zeitgeist exhibition in Berlin. It was at this exhibition in Berlin, that I hung one of the flying figures outside the Gropius Bau building - appearing to be flying out the window and across the Berlin Wall to the east. This was the same exhibition where I painted my Running Man on the Berlin Wall.