Alex Da Corte (1980) transforms objects from popular culture into vivid and emotionally complex works for the viewer who experiences them. The piece we are analyzing today recalls the incident at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York in 1991. That afternoon, a huge helium-filled balloon in the shape of Kermit the Frog became entangled in a tree branch, burst open, and fell half-deflated along Fifth Avenue, in front of thousands of spectators. As the parade went on, Kermit's fall drastically affected the atmosphere of the celebration.

With this work, located in the center of Place Vendôme in Paris during this year's Art Basel week, Da Corte chooses to present his Kermit suspended in the endless moment of defeat. Poised between humor and melancholy or despair, the inflatable sculpture embodies the artist's interest in showing us how cultural icons absorb and reveal our collective anxieties, but it is particularly a reflection on the fall and resilience of the iconic figure.