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Philippe Parreno - Speech Bubbles (Black), Louis Vuitton Foundation1 — Philippe Parreno – *Speech Bubbles (Black)*, mylar balloons, helium, black ribbon, each balloon: 109 x 68 x 29 cm, dimensions variable, Louis Vuitton Foundation, photo: Marc Domage

About Philippe Parreno

Philippe Parreno likes to work across different mediums. As a result, throughout his career that has spanned decades, he has been able to blur the lines between film, photography, documentaries, and various other types of media. He has built up interest over the years that allowed him to distort the established boundaries that exist between real-time and the cinematic impression of time passage.

Philippe Parreno portrait — Portrait of Philippe Parreno

Parreno’s speech bubbles

Speech Bubbles, created in 1997, consists of massive cartoonish 3D speech bubbles that had been trapped against the ceiling of the gallery. Unmarked and floating in the gallery space, the speech bubbles have been filled with helium to make them weightless and enable them to congregate and drift in one area.

Analysis

Parreno designed his Speech Bubbles to hover on the ceiling of the space that they occupied, creating a massive cloud with the intention of paying less attention to the architecture and more attention to the story. This philosophy and line of thought are completely in line with Parenno’s legacy of transforming gallery and museum spaces.

Additionally, the cloud created by the speech bubbles helps to change the nature of the space in which they are contained. By including them in the gallery, Parenno automatically creates a high-tech environment that is almost futuristic, managing to successfully link the present with the future.

Audiences turned into protagonists

Since the bubbles are also unmarked, Parreno was inviting visitors to inject meaning into them. As you may already know, speech bubbles are commonly used in comic books and cartoons to allow words and conversations to be understood. In this sense, the bubbles are frozen and empty without words or thoughts. As such, it is up to the attendee to fill them with meaningful language. In doing so, Parreno successfully turns audiences into protagonists who can control where the conversation goes.

Influenced by Andy Warhol?

According to some critiques, Parreno was also paying homage to the Silver Clouds which was created by Andy Warhol and exhibited back in 1966 in a New York gallery. However, while Warhol’s balloons were always in silver (and not speech bubbles at all), his were designed to defy density and gravity. Parreno’s speech bubbles, on the other hand, were designed to be filled with imagination.

Conclusion

This post-modern perspective of contemporary art, which Parenno shares with many other successful artists such as Warhol, explains why Parreno’s bubbles are an asset that introduces audiences to new ways of inhabiting and exploring the world.