Martin Creed at the Nasher, a.k.a. The Balloon Room

Inside the balloon room

Right now at the Nasher Sculpture Center there is a show called Sightings by British artist Martin Creed.  Part of this exhibit is a piece called Work No. 1190: Half the air in a given space, which is a room filled with yellow latex balloons.  It is by far the most fun you can legally have at an art museum.  Maybe it is a shame, but I rarely think of art – like proper museum level art – as fun.  But this is FUN!  It has been almost a month since I saw the exhibit (I’m a little behind on the blog writing), but I still feel like I must write about it (I have a theory about why, too, but I’ll get to that later).

I could begin at the beginning, but I really think it is better to start in the middle and go back.  So right in the middle is The Balloon Room.  Just as it sounds, this is a room that you can enter and walk around in, that also is filled with balloons.  It is the downstairs gallery space at the Nasher, for those of you who are familiar.  The room is probably about 25 feet square, with maybe a 15 foot ceiling.  As the air in the ballons are meant to represent half of the space, they fill the room about 10 feet high.  (My estimates may be wildly off, but the appearance of the room is that it is about 2/3 full of balloons.)  The front wall of the room is made of glass with doors on each side, so you can see the spectacle before you enter.  You must be interviewed and briefed quickly before you may enter (allergic to latex? claustrophobic? not for you).  When the museum staff tells you that you should look at the grain of the floorboards and follow them lengthwise to get out if you get lost, you might think they are crazy (there’s no way I’m getting lost in that little square room!).  Or you might think maybe you are crazy (oh god, I am going to get lost in there?  Why am I doing this?).  Or you may think Martin Creed is crazy (who thinks filling a room with balloons is art, after all?).

Thinking something might be crazy has never stopped me from doing it before, so in I went.  Joseph and I were at the museum with a field trip group of senior art students, so we actually knew other people in the room hen we first went in.  In spite if being able to hear their voices clearly, we could not see them.  If there were other people in the room, we couldn’t see them either.  We stayed together for a moment, but quickly the space between our bodies became filled by balloons and we were disconnected.  The sensation of being in the room quickly goes from a straightforward sort of “yep.  This is a room full of balloons, as expected” to a strange, slow, easy, swimming but still on your feet, dancing with no music and no rhythm, not really wanting to touch but being touched everywhere, complete sensory experience.

The balloons are so very easy to move out of your way that it doesn’t feel like much.  However, you do have to move in a way that is foreign to your body to move through the space, slowly shuffling your feet forward or high stepping over the balloons.  You must also slowly sinuously move your arms about over and in front of your head, or move through in a zen-like state accepting that things are going to touch against your face and neck.  I found that at first, I walked around holding my arms out the keep a free space around my head.  The people we knew in there were, from the sound of things, taking pictures, so Joseph and I called out and shuffled around until we found each other and took some too.  Then we ran in to the people we knew who also took some of us.  (Thus all of the illustrations for this post).  For a few minutes, that was fun.  I think they all took their photos and got out.  I will probably sound hopelessly pretentious saying this, but it seemed like such a youthful approach to the experience. I know that I used to mistake taking a picture doing something for having an actual experience, anyway.

Here we are, surrounded by balloons, having a good time

After I got my photographic proof (yes! I was there. I had fun!), I spent a few more minutes walking about the space.  At this point I figured that my glasses were not going to fall off (oh, the perils of life as a nerd), that my hair was already going to be frizzy, and that no one could see me anyway so I might as well quit trying to look cool.  I suspected that there would be another layer to the experience.  So I just let the balloons fall where they may; bouncing across my face and right against my glasses, becoming wedged between my ankles, and smushing between me and the wall.  I also had the slightly gross and human feeling of a partially deflated raisin like balloon brushing on the back of my hand.  Once I quit worrying about getting them off of me, I really felt immersed in this amazing complete sensory experience.  I could hear the rustle of other people moving around and their muffled conversations, smell the balloon latex, as well as the lingering scents of other people, and see not just individual balloons, but layers of color and depth.  I could feel the balloons easily giving way to my body, but also felt transformed by the static electricity built up in the room, making you feel charged and hyper-aware as every single hair on your body reacted to every single movement of the room.

And here I am, having this profound experience of feeling connected to the universe, in a room full of yellow balloons.  Which is a good reminder that even the most profound experiences can be funny and fun, and still useful and worthwhile at the same time.

Layers of Yellow in every direction

I think what makes this piece so successful is the sensory nature of it.  Of course we all know by now how deeply connected to memory and emotion senses like smell and sound are.  As a visual artist, I value the manner in which non-verbal communication can forge new connections in the mind.  I have experimented a bit with adding elements to my art that appeal to senses other than the eye (mostly smell).  This piece really drove home the potential of elements that we don’t usually associate with art to do the same thing.  Being in the room and physically moving through the space is a different experience than standing outside and imagining what it would feel like.  Having your senses of sight hearing both active but not connected must cause different synapses to fire than being able to see the source of a sound, yes?

I’m not sure what my conclusion for this piece is exactly.  Certainly, I think that everyone in or near the DFW metro area should try to go and see this exhibit while it is open (through June 19, 2011).  Be sure to read the really accessible and thought-provoking catalogue essay “Read This/ Don’t Read This” by curator Jed Morse, too.  I intentionally didn’t read it until I wrote this so I wouldn’t be unduly influenced by it (a good approach, I think, to museum materials), but I just did before starting this last paragraph (searching for a way to wrap this up, I suppose). It both reinforces and challenges my interpretation a bit, which is always nice.   Mostly, I guess I am writing this because this piece of artwork is really exciting and invigorating to me.  I love things that are both simple and complex.  Morse writes in the catalogue that “the important thing to remember for Creed’s art (or for any art) is to open yourself up the works, tune yourself to the details of your experience, and look, think, feel, and enjoy.”  It is easy to do with a piece like this that is so enveloping, and good advice to take with us into every art viewing experience.  Maybe even life in general.