Philippe Parreno - 'My Room is Another Fish Bowl' (2016)

This work made me shit. Not actually, obviously, but like, emotionally. I looked at this work and my brain shat itself. Because I loved it so much and so immediately. Born in 1964 in Algeria, Paris-based artist Philippe Parreno rose to artistic prominence in the 1990s with art that engaged the exhibition itself as a medium for art. In an interview with Frieze magazine, Parreno says that his use of the exhibition as the work came from a "refusal to be an object-producer; [he] always felt that an exhibition is not just an arrangement of objects but also an act of creation."

I came across some images of Parreno's 2016 installation at Brooklyn Museum and Gladstone Gallery in New York whilst reading Artsy's article The Most Influential Living Artists of 2016, and I squealed a little bit, I'm not going to lie. I love, love, love art that challenges the traditional idea art, and Parreno's "My Room is Another Fish Bowl" does just that.

My Room is Another Fish Bowl (2016) Photo: Jonathan Dorado

Look at thisssss. These are pictures taken by photographer by Jonathan Dorado of Parreno's 'My Room is Another Fishbowl', exhibited in 2016 in the Brooklyn Museum. The installation consisted of about 150 helium-filled fish balloons that were released into the Museum's foyer space. The fish moved around the space thanks to changes in pressure and shifting air currents created by the people walking through it. In a way, this installation totally relied on the people who came to view it. I'm really interested in art that takes advantage of or is controlled by its relationship with its audience, so this installation really excites me.

Parreno included this installation in a show entitled IF THIS THEN ELSE, which was his first solo show at Gladstone Gallery, New York. The show also included some of Parreno's sculptural and video works installed in different rooms of the building. There was a lot going on in this show; computers were incolved somehow, and apparently microorganisms? It was a lot for me to swallow to be honest - you can read the press release for this show on the Glastone Gallery's website if you want to try and work it out for yourself.

My Room is Another Fish Bowl (2016) installation at IF THIS THEN ELSE; Photo: David Regen

A number of the mylar fish were also featured in Parreno's 2016 show in the Tate Modern's enourmous Turbine Hall, entitled ANYWHEN.

This isn't Parenno's first time using helium balloons in his installations - several of his shows in the 90s feature ballons, namely his 1997 installation Speech Bubbles (white), an installation featuring a whole bunch white balloons shaped as speech bubbles at the Frac Nord-Pas de Calais, a gallery in Dunkirk in Northern France. There is the idea that the blank, empty balloons floating above the head of the viewer invokes a sense of things unsaid.

Speech Bubbles (white) (1997) - installation at Fade In/Fade Out, a collaborative show at Bloomberg Space in 2008

Allusions! Upon researching Parreno's fish piece I learned that it bears allusions to Billy Kluver and Andy Warhol's 1966 installation Silver Clouds, large silver mylar balloons set to float around a room. Much like Parreno's fish, the silver rectangles responded to climactic changes in the room, and are filled with varying ratios of oxygen to helium so they float at different heights.

Silver Clouds (1966)

There's something about balloons, isn't there? Seeing rooms filled with them taps into some kind of childish delight, and Parreno's fish bring to life this wonderful fantasy world controlled by the people who interact with it.

See the rest of his Parreno's works on his Instagram and just google, generally.