Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Carsten Höller's ~ " Carrousel "

Written by Allan Auer Saturday, 07 May 2011 20:23

 

Bregenz, Austria -  Carrousel, at Kunsthaus Bregenz, is an exhibition of rotations and endless repetitions. Though works of the most differing types of construction and effects by artist Carsten Höller are assembled on the various floors and the roof, all retain rotation and repetition in common. In the similarity of their movements, the works echo the building’s architecture, which repeats itself throughout every floor, but they simultaneously defy it by their erratic, unsteady character and their almost antithetic formal languages.
 

On the ground floor, visitors are welcomed by the huge 17 m diameter carrousel, the R B Ride, originally designed for an outside space. 12 gondolas each for 2 people revolve very slowly in a circle, rising extremely lethargically almost to the 6 m high ceiling of the Kunsthaus and thereafter returning to their starting point below. The passengers require 15 minutes for such a ride, a quarter of an hour stolen, rather like a 15 minute diversion of time, in which trapped by height none of the thrill will be experienced for which the machine was originally designed.
 
On the floor above, the Kunsthaus itself revolves, or at least appears to. A frieze consisting of tens of thousands of white flashing diodes is installed all around the walls, programmed so that the four walls blink sequentially. The frequency at which the lights flash leads to viewers experiencing hallucinatory after-images and above all amazing perceptions of color in red, blue, and green. However, the probable effects of Light Space can, at this point in time, only be discerned from one of the artist’s earlier works, Light Wall. What will really happen remains to be seen after the completion of the installation, as such a space has never been created before.
 
The second floor is divided along its diagonal; one half of the room is completely covered in mirrors over its walls. The other half, its proportional equivalent, remains unaltered. The mirrored half of the space reflects the unmirrored other half. The element of rotation here comes about through the deployment of a right angle in two corners of the mirrored area, so that its unmirrored opposite, as well as the viewers, are reflected as a mirror-inversion as well as (by double reflection) the “right way” round. Depending on the viewer’s position, the same object can appear either the “right” or the “wrong” way round. From most viewpoints both variations can be seen simultaneously. The same mirrors have already been part of an installation by Daniel Buren mounted in the Kunsthaus in the past; their reuse perfectly corresponds with this exhibition’s leitmotif of rotation.
 
On the top floor, the Revolving Hotel Room can be found – 4 partly overlapping glass disks, slowly moving in counter-rotations and arranged vertically above one another over a similarly revolving supporting disk of the same material. The disks are furnished with objects which fulfill the basic requirements of an ordinary hotel room: reclining/sleeping, sitting/working, dressing/undressing. Through the furniture and the glass disks the rotating steel support is visible, rather like a large transparent clock. For the duration of the exhibition, the Revolving Hotel Room can be booked every Friday and Saturday night either as a single or double room, so that from 6.30 pm until 8.30 am hotel guests can enjoy the luxury of having the Kunsthaus and exhibition completely to themselves.
 
On a projection screen on the same floor, like a view from the hotel room window, the Flying City can be seen, which is apparently positioned directly above the viewer, who is able to recognize Lake Constance, the city of Bregenz, and the surrounding mountains in the background of the live transmission from a camera revolving once an hour on its own axis. The Flying City in the foreground of the projection is a circular construction with seven rotating towers, completely built from transparent material, which derives from Russian architect Georgi Krutikow’s 1928 design, when he envisaged a flying city in which people could live and work, while the earth was reserved solely for recreational and social purposes.
 
Carsten Höller describes his exhibition Carrousel as a self-portrait for all and everybody and an attempt not only to describe, but above all to disturb and disrupt our inner “auto pilot,” to wrest us away from our zombie-like blindness, or to at least confront the necessary failure of such an undertaking, to deliver oneself up to oneself. On exhibition 12 April through 1 June, 2008.
 
Visit Kunsthaus Bregenz at: www.kunsthuas-bregenz.at

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