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Big Bubble

PUBLIC ART COLLECTION IDENTIFICATION SUMMARY

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View a Quick Time Movie of Big Bubble

Located in Buffalo Bayou, beneath the Preston Street Bridge.

Big Bubble, 1998
Dean Ruck
Air Compressor, Electronics, Pipes

Commissioned by Central Houston Civic Improvement, Inc.

Featured in the book Designing the World's Best Public Art, by Garrison Roots, Images Publishing Group.

Dean Ruck conceived of Big Bubble after reviewing the Buffalo Bayou Master Plan's call for increasing aeration in the waterway. He was selected from a national competition for projects in Sesquicentennial Park.

“I didn't want to announce it as a piece of art. It's an occurrence, an event, a happening. The button itself is up there unannounced, and so it creates a real curiosity to people that come across it – it's just a red button. Do I push it or don't I? – You know? What's it gonna do? So, I liked that idea that it's not a labeled or plaque piece of art. It's just something that people discover. Obviously, there's a certain ephemeral quality to it because it's not always there to see. It happens occasionally. You have to be here at the right time to see it. It creates a certain mythology of its own by what's going on there, what it's for, what its function is, how it's – how it's created. So I like that idea of it not being thought of or – or seen as a piece of art, but it just – something in the bayou.”