CARSTEN HÖLLER Dice (White Body, Black Dots), 2014 Glass reinforced polyester resin / fibregalss, and poplar plywood on expanded poly-styrene core and mechanical connectors 94 1/2 x 94 1/2 x 94 1/2 inches 240 x 240 x 240 c © Carsten Höller. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Carsten Höller’s installation Gartenkinder, a space conceived specially for children, will be shown by Gagosian at Frieze London opening on 15th October 2014.
Gartenkinder is a new form of children’s playground with walls and floor in red, green, blue and yellow. It includes a large-scale dice that children can crawl inside, a giant mushroom that rocks like a roly-poly toy, Perplexity Ball, whose bouncing direction cannot be predicted, an uncannily realistic octopus and other elements. The installation emphasises the importance of play. Children can interact with the different sculptures placed at their disposition and be watched while doing so.
About The Artist
Carsten Höller uses his training as a scientist in his work as an artist, concentrating particularly on the nature of human relationships. Born in Brussels in 1961, he now lives and works in Stockholm. His major installations include Test Site, a series of giant slides for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (2006), Amusement Park – an installation of full-size funfair rides turning and moving at very slow speed at MASS MoCA, North Adams, USA (2006), Flying Machine (1996), a work which hoists the viewer through the air, Upside-Down Goggles, an experiment with goggles which modify vision, The Double Club (2008-2009) in London, which opened in November 2008 and closed in July 2009, took the form of a bar, restaurant and nightclub designed to create a dialogue between Congolese and Western culture. His Revolving Hotel Room, 2008, a rotating art installation which becomes a fully operational hotel room at night, was shown as part of theanyspacewhatever exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2009. His works have been shown internationally over the last two decades, including solo exhibitions at Fondazione Prada, Milan (2000), the ICA Boston (2003), Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2004), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010), Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2011), New Museum, New York (2011) and TBA 21, Vienna (2014).
In Summer 2015 he will have major exhibitions at Hayward Gallery in London and Centro Botín in Santander.
