MILAN.- The exhibition “Doubt” divides the space at
Pirelli HangarBicocca into two halves, which can be accessed through two different entrances. Visitors have to decide for a color, green or yellow, in order to enter. They will find the artworks aligned along the middle axis of the space. This alignment of works forms a central dividing wall, where visitors will see/experience only half of a given work, and have to remember the half they have seen until they encounter the other half on the other side.
More than twenty large-scale works will be exhibited, including Zöllner Stripes (2001-on going), Decision Corridors (2015), Flying Mushrooms (2015), Two Flying Machines (2015), Double Neon Elevator (2016) and Light Corridor (2016).
Visitors will be able to sleep at Pirelli HangarBicocca, spending a night on Two Roaming Beds (Grey) (2015), two single beds that drift endlessly through the space of the Cubo.
On April 7, 2016, Pirelli HangarBicocca will open “Doubt,” a solo exhibition by Carsten Höller. The German artist (b. 1961 in Brussels, based in Stockholm, Sweden and Biriwa, Ghana) has risen to the fore of the international scene for his penetrating inquiry into the nature of human experience. Directly engaging the viewer in his art, Höller’s practice revolves around the search for new ways of inhabiting our world. His work summons upon different states of mind: joy, illusion, and of course, “doubt,” which opens the door to new ways of perceiving reality. The show, curated by Vicente Todolí, presents a rich selection of works both existent and new, including large-scale installations, videos and photographs, and plays with the spatial and temporal coordinates of the exhibition venue, charting a course between symmetry, duplication and reversal.
“Doubt” unfolds along twinned, parallel paths that foreground the potential which lies in the moment of decision-making, demanding sensory participation and perceptual focus on part of the viewers. It is up to the visitors to choose how to approach the exhibition and which path to take.
In Carsten Höller’s view, choice is inherent to the work of art, and at the very beginning of the exhibition, the installation Y (2003), which is lined with numerous flashing light bulbs and can be walked through in its entirety, raises the question of which way to go. This choice is what determines the shape of “Doubt” both as an individual experience, based on the sensations and memories of each visitor in relation to the space, and as a collective one that allows visitors to observe other people as they interact with the works. As the artist says, “You might have the feeling that you are missing out on something because there is always another possibility, or there is always another way to do it.”
Just after Y, Division Walls (2016) comprises two partitions made up of colored sections, each of which halves both the dimensions and the intensity of tone found in the one before. This echoes the mathematical concept of the asymptote, according to which a curve can only approach a straight line by infinite degrees. The contrast between boundary and extension on which this work is based paves the way for the installation Decision Corridors (2015): two mirror-image steel structures, set at different levels, which lead visitors along a dark, maze-like path, where they may lose their sense of orientation and time.
The exhibition layout alternates works that draw on optical experiments—like Zöllner Stripes (2001–ongoing), whose illusory pattern characterizes the central part of the show, and Upside-Down Goggles (1994/2011), in which the artist invites visitors to see the world bottom-up—with others that are as playful in nature, like Flying Mushrooms (2015), a mobile structure that allows viewers to interact with giant toadstools, and Two Flying Machines (2015), in which visitors can experience the sensation of flight. The exhibition also invites us to reconsider the meaning of play and participation through Double Carousel (2011), a merry-go-round for adults that gives a sense of euphoria and amazement, while with the work Two Roaming Beds (Grey) (2015), made up of two beds that drift endlessly through the space, Carsten Höller invites visitors to spend an unique night in the exhibition. Visitors can book the experience on the website http://www.hangarbicocca.org/home-en-US/ and sleep for a night in the Cubo space, falling asleep and waking up in two different points in the space. The slow movement of Two Roaming Beds (Grey) induces an intermediary state halfway between sleeping and dreaming, echoing a meditative and oneiric dimension.
Yellow/Orange Double Sphere (2016), a hanging light-based work composed of two concentric, flickering colored spheres, one inside the other, interacts with Marquee (2015), a piece by Philippe Parreno from his solo exhibition previously on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, “Hypothesis” (October 2015 – February 2016). This overlap between the two shows suggests an idea of collaboration linked to the practice of both artists, who since the 1990s have explored the concepts of participation and authorship.
The exhibition “Doubt” is accompanied by a catalogue, edited by Vicente Todolí, that includes an extensive photographic documentation of the show and a text by Francesco Bonami.
