Marquee Venise

2013

Stainless steel, Plexiglass, light bulbs, neons, pyrex tubes (glass)

324 x 255 x 39 cm (127 9/16 x 100 3/8 x 15 3/8 in.)

Marquee Venise (Venice Marquee) gives space rhythm with its intermittent lights. Borrowing the aesthetics of a loud commercial sign, the work is sensibly designed to be placed at the entrance of the exhibition. Thus, it elicits in the observer the delayed expectation of a “general public” entertainment.

Since the 1990s, Parreno has contributed to a radical challenge of the concept of exhibition, with a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach. His series of Marquees, bright installations placed at the entry of contemporary art museums, is one of his many interventions on the roles of this type of event. Inspired by American movie theatre signs of the 1950s, these ironic evocations mock the ever larger place taken by the spectacular within the museum space.

An iconic work by Philippe Parreno, Marquee Venise belongs to the Pinault Collection. Specifically designed for the Punta della Dogana, this work was first shown at the “Prima Materia” (“Raw Material”) exhibition.

Exhibitions