The Hammock

Artist Pinaree Sanpitak (Thai, born 1961)

Date2014

DimensionsH. (highest point) 168 in.; W. (post to post) 75 in.; D. (hammock) 36 in.

MediumBlown glass and steel

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2015.54

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Sculpture Garden

Label TextProduced at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion as part of an artist residency in 2014, Pinaree Sanpitak’s The Hammock comprises approximately 700 large glass “beads” strung together on steel wires. The hammock form comes out of a body of work in which Sanpitak fashioned the hanging beds from Thai printed cottons of the type that were passed out in relief bags after severe flooding in Thailand in 2011/12. She explained of these works that the hammocks “represent the situation of precarious times balancing traditional and modern values. The hammocks are presence of the body, bare and contemplating. The body waiting to slow down. The body floating. The body just hanging by a thread. Thus a situation I believe we all share.” This sense of floating, which suggests weightlessness, is enhanced in Toledo’s hammock by the inherent transparency of glass. You are invited to lie on the hammock, but only one person at a time. No standing on the sculpture. Small children must be supervised by an adult.