Alex Schweder, 2007's Stranger Genius in Visual Art, is showing a major work this season at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—a work that he first created for Suyama Space, under the curatorship of Beth Sellars, the same year he won the Genius.

That first version of the piece was made entirely of transparent plastic whose internal shapes you were able to subtly discern only as the structure inflated. From what I wrote about it:

The action of A Sac of Rooms Three Times a Day at Suyama Space happens at mealtimes (9 am, 12:30 pm, 4 pm) and takes about an hour. In its latent state, a 21-by-28-by-9-foot clear vinyl sac rests on the wood floor, puddled like a memory of mercury, and with other sacs inside it. The exterior sac is modeled after a 500-foot bungalow. But the clear sacs inside (shaped as rooms, a staircase, fireplace, toilet, and sink) are modeled after a larger, 800-foot bungalow. As the whole inflates, the innards push against each other and the skin uncomfortably, resembling distended organs. The sculpture becomes a quivering apparition with stitches, and also a complex architectural drawing in thin air. It is kin to Do-Ho Suh's sewn structures, but unenterable, and it's introspective and fat, like Whiting Tennis's cow trailer or Erwin Wurm's talking house, but as basal and involuntary as a fish or a dream.

Now, in its second incarnation as part of the show Sensate, curated by SFMoMA's Henry Urbach from the museum's permanent collection (SFMoMA acquired the piece—SAM/Henry, where were you on this one?), the piece is titled A Sac of Rooms All Day Long and includes black lines that articulate the interior. It becomes a very different piece this way; a drawing as much as a sculpture, and even in some parts a sort of painting as the layers fold up and in on each other to create fields of webby depth.

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