Edoardo Tresoldi’s ethereal wire mesh sculptures rise in the California desert

Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi, known for his full-scale wire mesh sculptures, has unveiled his latest project at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which begins today in Indio, California. Called “Etherea,” the site-specific installation continues Tresoldi’s work in the medium and features three life-size structures inspired by neoclassical and baroque architecture.

Made entirely from wire mesh, the massive buildings rise from the vast campgrounds of the annual festival like ghostly figures that are at once material and immaterial. Together, they comprise Tresoldi’s largest artwork to date and are actually three identical designs—but different sizes. Positioned on an axis, they measure 36, 54, and 72 feet in height and are open to visitors, who can enter them and experience changing perspectives and dimensions as they move through them.

Their ethereal quality is appropriate to the festival setting, where a “temporary city” is erected then taken down. “It is the ideal dimension for Tresoldi to continue his sculptural narration of the ephemeral as a long-awaited suspended reality,” a press release notes, “as an entity that transforms all of its elements into an event, resulting in a public space that disappears once the event itself is over.”