This summer San Francisco's Exploratorium museum is hosting an exciting exhibition showcasing massive, inflatable works of art. Curated by the founder of infamous art, design, and visual culture blog Colossal, Christopher Jobson, the idea was to set up an exhibition that will push the viewer into unfamiliar territory, allowing the visitors photograph, touch, and observe the exhibits.
A selection of large-format, inflatable artworks by emerging and mid-career contemporary artists are displayed throughout the museum floor alongside the 650+ permanent exhibits that demonstrate scientific and natural phenomena. Complying with the institution's philosophy to question and discover the world around us, the visitors are able to interact with these large-scale artworks and discover their relationship with the natural world. Simultaneously, the artists are pushing the boundaries of the peculiar medium and challenging the technical possibilities, both with animatronic pieces and complex creations made from everyday latex balloons.
Blowing up microscopic forms to larger than life format, some of the works give an illusion of entering a microscopic biological world, providing a new and original way to experience the Exploratorium's space. Inspired by organic forms and constructed onsite, the exhibits are also meant to deflate almost imperceptibly through the summer, further connecting the exhibition with biological decay. The exhibition includes existing works by Amanda Parer and Pneuhaus, and site-specific installations by Jimmy Kuhnle, Shih Chieh Huang, and Jason Hackenwerth. —Sasha Bogojev
Inflatable at the Exploratorium from Colossal on Vimeo.