Thin Skin: The Fickle Nature Of Bubbles, Spheres, And Inflatable Structures

Like some benign infestation, bubbles (and related forms) seem to be springing up everywhere lately in contemporary art. Thin Skin brings together some of the most interesting contemporary work involving malleable, inflatable materials, including pieces by James Lee Byars, Charles and Ray Eames, Olafur Eliasson, Tom Friedman, Piero Manzoni, Ernesto Neto, Pipilotti Rist, Miri Segal, and Andy Warhol. Thin Skin identifies their current popularity as a function of two contemporary conditions: a new awareness of 'in-between' spaces, spaces neither real nor completely virtual, situations neither entirely in our control nor totally beyond it; and a new understanding of our own bodies as permeable sensors in constant osmotic exchange as they move through these spaces. An original and thought-provoking accumulation of inflatables, Thin Skin proves that thinness and transparency are indeed the symbolic, and maybe even the real, skin that encase contemporary spaces and bodies.