auruBOROS threads golden coils through the High Line

Two inflated gold coils pass beneath The Standard Hotel and through New York’s High Line in auruBOROS, a temporary installation by Plastique Fantastique that brings a monumental form into contact with the daily movement of the city.

A polished gold body loops across the High Line, dipping towards the walkway before rising beneath the building above. Its surface folds the surrounding architecture, planting and pedestrians into a continuous reflection. From one position the sculpture appears as a sequence of broad arches; from another, its openings align into a spiralling passage.

Titled auruBOROS: Urban Memory and Collective Dream, the work was created by Marco Canevacci and Yena Young of Plastique Fantastique. It was presented at Little West 12th Street from 10 to 20 September 2026, marking the duo’s first public art installation in the United States. Bvlgari commissioned it for the Serpenti Infinito art series as an independent project, separate from High Line Art.

Opening the circle

The name joins aurum, the Latin word for gold, with the ouroboros, the ancient image of a serpent consuming its own tail. Plastique Fantastique opened that closed figure and extended it into the city. Two intertwined coils formed a continuous body across the site’s horizontal and vertical layers.

The installation measured 30 × 10 × 10 metres. Drawings show how its looping geometry occupied the space beneath The Standard Hotel, crossing the elevated park rather than standing apart from it. Visitors could move around and beneath the sculpture, with the path, railings and planting remaining part of the encounter.

At this scale, the work framed fragments of the city. Its curved openings admitted views along the High Line, while its outer surfaces reflected the buildings and sky. The surrounding scene appeared both through the sculpture and across its skin.

A monument sustained by air

The gold appearance suggested weight, yet the sculpture was pneumatic. Ventilators sustained its volume within a skin of golden mirrored TPU. Air allowed a form thirty metres long to remain physically light, giving the installation a scale that belied its material construction.

For the artists, this tension between visual mass and physical fragility was central to the work. The precious-looking surface and monumental dimensions suggested permanence, while the inflated body depended on air and existed only temporarily. Its presence could be substantial without being solid.

Reflection made that presence change throughout the day. Sunlight, weather and the movement of people altered the image carried by the curved surface. Close views reveal seams and soft distortions within the gold skin, while photographs taken at dusk show the coils catching light above the gathering beneath them.

A shared image of the city

The subtitle, Urban Memory and Collective Dream, shifts attention from the object to the encounters around it. No visitor occupied the mirrored image alone. Reflections of strangers appeared alongside one another, mixing with vegetation, architecture and sky on the same curved surface.

Plastique Fantastique describes this interest in shared public experience as “Public Love”. In auruBOROS, the temporary installation offered a place in which people could pause together along an existing route. The artists’ concern extended to what might remain after the sculpture was removed: a memory of occupying the place with others.

The photographs trace this social dimension from daytime passage to evening gatherings. As the light changed, the golden body continued to frame the pedestrian space, making the people around it part of the work’s changing appearance.

Plastique Fantastique

Based in Athens and Berlin, Marco Canevacci and Yena Young work through pneumatic installations that place unfamiliar spatial conditions within existing settings. Air has been central to Plastique Fantastique’s practice since 1999, allowing temporary forms to engage with architecture, performance and public life.

auruBOROS brought that approach to the layered setting of the High Line. A thin reflective membrane and a supply of air produced a large public sculpture, while the movement of visitors and the surrounding city supplied the images across its surface.

Project Credits

Project: auruBOROS: Urban Memory and Collective Dream
Artists: Plastique Fantastique / @plastique.fantastique
Authors: Marco Canevacci and Yena Young
Commission: Bvlgari, Serpenti Infinito
Location: The High Line, Little West 12th Street, New York, United States
Dates: 10–20 September 2026
Dimensions: 30 × 10 × 10 m
Materials: Golden mirrored TPU, ventilators
Curatorial development and executive production: Lavinia Freitas
Photography: Marco Canevacci, Lavinia Freitas, Swan Park
Portraits and drawings: Supplied by Plastique Fantastique.