100 Years, 8 Rolls, 1 Ball

When traversing the polished stone concourse of Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof, a casual glance downward may reveal something unexpected: a golden sphere, embedded in the ground, shimmering quietly beneath reinforced glass. This is La Boule d’or centenaire, the Golden Century Ball, by Swiss conceptual artist and musician Dieter Meier. More than just an artwork, the Golden Century Ball is a distillation of Meier’s ethos, joy in the absurd, reverence for the mundane, and a lifelong commitment to play as a serious, subversive force.

Installed in 2008, the artwork will remain in place for exactly 100 years, only to be ceremonially “rolled” on a handful of preordained dates before its final movement in 2108. The golden ball will be removed from its glass enclosure only a few times to be ceremonially rolled 12 meters (39 feet) along a specially constructed wooden track, poetically named the Bois du voyage d’or — the Golden Journey Wood.

These rare events were scheduled on the following dates:

• 9 May 2008

• 24 June 2008

• 18 September 2016

• 28 August 2033

• 12 June 2064

• 21 July 2082

• 18 January 2097

• 9 May 2108

And yes, I know what you're all thinking. Me too, making a wish to witness the next one, which is set to be held in Hamburg...

Dieter Meier is known internationally as the frontman of Yello, the electropop duo behind hits like “Oh Yeah,” whose synthetic yelps and stuttering beats became sonic icons of the 1980s. But long before his musical success, Meier was a performance artist and provocateur, crafting conceptual works in the lineage of Dadaism and Fluxus. He has stood still in public spaces for hours, installed future promises as plaques in Kassel, and handed strangers coins and receipts simply for participating in his momentary performances.

His career trajectory defies category: law student, poker player, pop star, cattle breeder, vintner, restaurateur. But beneath the surface multiplicity lies a consistent throughline, an insistence on breaking boundaries, rejecting solemnity, and asking us to find beauty in what we overlook.

La Boule d’or centenaire was installed not in a museum but in a busy transit hub, the ultimate threshold of modern life, where thousands pass without pausing. The golden sphere is not only decorative, it is durational. Its true activations occur on rare, ritualistic dates when it is unearthed and rolled along a modest wooden runway known as the Bois du voyage d’or, the Golden Voyage Wood, before being returned to its subterranean berth. This gesture, part ceremony, part theater, highlights time, patience, and absurd precision. In an era obsessed with speed and instant visibility, Meier's project suggests the opposite, that meaning can be accrued slowly, perhaps only through collective anticipation or long memory. The ball is protected, even venerated, not for what it does, but for the idea it holds: that the ordinary, when treated with attention and ritual, becomes extraordinary.

The Century Ball belongs to a larger conceptual suite Meier calls Le Rien en Or, The Golden Nothing. In this series, Meier plated everyday objects around Zurich, lampposts, drainpipes, railings, in gold. By transforming the invisible urban infrastructure into highlighted artifacts, he forces viewers to ask: Why is this golden? Why didn’t I notice it before? The format is deeply democratic. It resists the hierarchies of institutional art and instead places wonder directly into the street, literally gilding the banal. It suggests that what we ignore may hold the most poetic potential.

Meier’s gold is not ostentation, it is alchemy. He does not beautify to glorify but to reframe. What shines in his work is not just metal but perspective. Meier’s life, like his art, resists serious categorization. He is, in a very real sense, an artist who treats life as his canvas. In this he echoes Duchamp, Beuys, and the Dadaists, with a distinctly Swiss irreverence, tempered by dry wit and existential delight. In interviews, Meier often speaks of joy, humor, and the play of form over function. Whether opening an Argentine winery, designing Zurich’s slowest performance, or playing electronic music in his seventies, he behaves not like someone who makes art, but someone who lives it.

This is public art at its best, not a monument to permanence or power, but a subtle disruption, a wrinkle in the everyday, an act that invites people to see again.

In 2108, when La Boule d’or centenaire makes its final ceremonial journey, most of us will be gone. But the piece will remain, patiently waiting beneath the footsteps of travelers, a glint in the pavement and a whisper from the past, but this century-long, golden joke may just be one of the most radical gestures Zurich has seen.

Text by Donna Leonard