Philippe Parreno “My Room Is Another Fish Bowl”

Brooklyn Museum

[Image: Philippe Parreno "My Room Is Another Fish Bowl" (2016) Mylar and helium, overall dimensions vary © Philippe Parreno. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels. (Photo: David Regen)]

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The Brooklyn Museum presents Philippe Parreno: My Room Is Another Fish Bowl, approximately 150 colorful fish-shaped Mylar balloons will float at various heights and move gently through the glass-enclosed Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion in response to human interaction and climatic changes. This elegant and hypnotic installation invites visitors of all ages to contemplate the passage of time and shifting patterns of light and atmospheric conditions as the balloons swim through the air. Visible from the street, the fish will appear as if in a large, architectural fish bowl.

My Room Is Another Fish Bowl advances recurring themes in Philippe Parreno’s practice. Through movement, he hopes to activate the senses beyond the visual, focusing on how we experience the unfolding of time as an active, narrative phenomenon-a kind of performance. In many of his exhibitions, the objects and sculptures do perform: walls move, pianos play, screens descend, and illuminated theater marquees blink on and off. This participatory work in the Brooklyn Museum’s glass-enclosed pavilion is free to the public and encourages prolonged interaction with art from the moment visitors enter the space. A smaller version of this work was on view in the exhibition IF THIS THEN ELSE, at the Gladstone Gallery, New York, earlier this year.

Philippe Parreno (French, born Algeria 1964) is a visual artist whose work came to prominence in the 1990s. His practice spans a wide range of mediums, including installation, film, sculpture, performance, drawing, and the printed word. Based in Paris, Parreno has collaborated with a number of artists, architects, musicians, and scientists throughout his international career. In presenting his work, Parreno approaches the exhibition as a medium unto itself. To this end, he designs his installations, such as the 2015 large-scale presentation H{N)Y P N(Y}OSIS, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, as scripted spaces in which a series of choreographed events unfold. His site-specific Hyundai Commission opens this October at Tate Modern, London, filling its cavernous Turbine Hall.

Philippe Parreno: My Room Is Another Fish Bowl is organized by the Brooklyn Museum.