Jonathan Grado

I'm honored to have debuted Happy Hour during SXSW 2025 at the Satellite Art Show in Austin, Texas. SXSW (South by Southwest) is a city-wide art and film festival that takes over Austin every Spring. Happy Hour is a conceptual photo series about a body with others' expectations and a mind for more. Also the main character is a businessperson with a disco ball for a head. So there's that too.

Exhibiting during SXSW

When the opportunity to build an installation for one of my photo series came up I immediately said yes, but I only found out I would be doing it two weeks before the Satellite Art Show started. There was a whole list of things to do: printing the photos, figuring out their sizes, planning the layout of the set, and more. Would 4,000 balls be enough? I'm genuinely asking because I had no idea.

Printing Photos for Exhibition

The most integral part of showing printed photography: printing the photography. My friend Penny De Los Santos introduced me to AgavePrint, a fantastic local print shop in Austin, a few years back. I reached out to Peter and Lauren there, and despite the short turnaround, they absolutely delivered. Beautiful prints and great craftsmanship. This was my first time printing a portion of Happy Hour, and my first time printing images captured on a medium format camera. I was nervous, but I am about most things. I think? Maybe being constantly unsure is what I'm thinking of. Anyway, they came out gorgeous. The clarity, depth, and tonality of the prints were exactly what I’d hoped for.

Building the Set: 4,000 Balls and a Missing Fence

For those who’ve seen Happy Hour, the ball pit is a central part of the visual story. Vibrant expectation quicksand. Recreating Happy Hour as a physical installation in Austin during SXSW meant translating the piece’s visual language into a live environment, but doing it during one of the busiest times of the year. I knew I wanted to recreate it in the gallery, but with only two weeks and a vague sense of how much space I would have, I took a guess and got 4,000 ball pit balls.

I could’ve used a few thousand more.

I also ordered a few knee-high white picket fences which did not arrive on time (and as of this writing are still no where to be found). So this called for some last minute pivots. These pivots also lead to using office storage boxes as podiums at the front of the exhibit and throughout the ball pit.

Showing at Satellite Ranch

The Satellite Art Show took place on a big, open property in East Austin called Satellite Ranch. The Happy Hour installation was at the top of the room in "Willy's House", after Willie Nelson. I was grateful to be showing next to artists such as Phil Buehler, whose installation The Perils of Indifference was literally encapsulating. After a hectic lead-up and some day-of troubleshooting, the show came together beautifully. From the ball pit to the office box podiums, it was a bit surreal to see fully installed.

Happy Hour explores identity and expectation, but for other surrealist photography and conceptual art dealing with oranges and dreams check out Saint Citrus and Dirty Static. Only if you feel like it. It's ok if you're busy.

Below are some more photos of the finished installation.