In conjunction with his 2004 solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Xavier Veilhan was asked to create an installation for the Centre’s Forum space – a large, open area filled with the commotion of people, neon, and signage. Veilhan faced the challenge of creating an installation that would neither dominate nor disappear. He achieved this by exploiting the space above the activity, creating an enormous mobile of shiny black spheres of varying sizes.

A maquette of the mobile was installed in Veilhan’s studio. While it was there, he began to see it as a “thought bubble” floating over the heads of the numerous collaborators who were always at the studio. The mobile came to represent for Veilhan a physical manifestation of the constantly shifting ideas and emotions present in any room of people.

Veilhan has created mobiles for several spaces now, each time dealing with the opportunities and challenges of the new location. The spheres in the mobile at Sandra Gering Gallery have a completely matte black finish. From outside the storefront windows of the gallery, the shapes appears flat and decorative – an arrangement of two-dimensional dots rather than three-dimensional spheres. Once inside, though, the viewer has to negotiate the distinctly physical presence of the forms shifting above. Likewise, the mobile navigates the space around the viewer.