The Boy From Mars, 2005
Neon tubes, metal, transparent Plexiglas, transformer, cables

The neon sign Boy from Mars was first installed outside Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York where Philippe Parreno's 2003 film by the same name was screening. In effect the bright yellow sculpture with its name shown in black letters on both sides is a precursor to the artist's series of marquees begun the following year, 2006, for an exhibition at Esther Schipper, Berlin. Like most of Parreno's works The Boy from Mars, both the film and this work, exist in an in-between space: Mirage-like the neon work announces a project, a film and its own connectedness.

Photo © the artist and Irish Museum of Modern Art