ART CITIES:Beijing-Carsten Höller
Originally trained as a scientist, Carsten Höller is frequently inspired by research and experiments from scientific history and deploys these studies in works that alter the audience’s physical and psychological sensations, inspiring doubt and uncertainty about the world around them. His work often draws on social spaces outside of the museum such as the amusement park, zoo, or playground, but the experiences they provide are always far from our usual expectations of these activities.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galleria Continua Archive
New and recent works by Carsten Höller are on presentation at his solo exhibition “Method” at Galleria Continua in Beijing. Höller’s work takes the form of proposals for radical, new ways of living by creating sculptures and diagrams for visionary architecture as well as transportation alternatives, such as his renowned slide installations. These concepts may seem impossible in the present day, but suggest new models for the future. In “Divisions (Sphere and Carpet)” the first line divides the carpet into two parts of the same size, and every following line further divides the subsequent squares of one divided part into equal halves. Höller’s discourse on method is an eminently practical and productive one, giving rise to infinite shades of color and a panoply of geometrical objects. In “Divisions Circle (White Lines on Carmine-red and White Background)”, white dots placed at strategic intersections open up ever-new subdivisions. Over the years, the artist has employed psychotropic drugs, flashing lights, and other stimuli to potentially alter the viewer’s mental state. For Höller, mushrooms embody these sensory journeys, not just because of their supposedly ‘magic’ effects but also because of their complex structure, much of it underground, which sparks the curiosity of this artistic researcher. The “Giant Triple Mushroom” stands as a towering testament to the wonder felt at those living, meandering organisms science has still not understood. Höller’s enlarged mushroom replicas brim with an Alice-in-Wonderland-like excitement over the brightly-colored worlds to which they give access. Höller reintegrates even the mind-expanding fungal universe into a scholarly order of things, as he demonstrates in “Double Mushroom Vitrine (Twenty-Fourfold)”, an arranged visual taxonomy with a twist: Upon closer inspection, each mushroom specimen turns out to be a montage, with one half representing a variety of wild mushroom and the other the fly agaric known for its poisonous and psychoactive properties. In “Decimal Clock (White and Pink)”, Höller’s rationalist instincts turn to the division of time. The functional clock, accounting for 10 hours, 100 minutes and 100 seconds, reminds us that the global homogenization of time occurred only recently as a response to the unprecedented degree of planetary interconnectedness. In “Soma” series, each setting composed of representations of a reindeer, a female model, and a fresh fly agaric mushrooms, alludes to the mythical substance mentioned in the Vedic writings. Both a gateway to the world of the gods and a source of spiritual Enlightenment, soma was said to be a crucial component of the ritualistic practices of the Vedic people. Humankind, however, forgot about the plant, which can no longer be identified (even though some believed the Vedic ritualists relied on the fly agaric mushroom to open the doors of their perception).
Info: Galleria Continua, Dashanzi Art District 798 #8503, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang Dst., Beijing, Duration 23/3-2/5/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.galleriacontinua.com
