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Carsten Höller’s Installations Invite Viewers to Interact with Reimagined Versions of Mundane Objects

Belgian-born, Stockholm-based artist Carsten Höller creates interactive installations that reimagine the functionalities of commonplace objects and spaces. His recent piece for Gagosian Gallery at Frieze New York invited viewers to enter an Alice in Wonderland-inspired room where gigantic, textured mushroom sculptures hung over their heads.

Gagosian Gallery at Frieze New York, 2014

Belgian-born, Stockholm-based artist Carsten Höller creates interactive installations that reimagine the functionalities of commonplace objects and spaces. His recent piece for Gagosian Gallery at Frieze New York invited viewers to enter an Alice in Wonderland-inspired room where gigantic, textured mushroom sculptures hung over their heads.

In 2011, he put a metal playground slide through the ceilings of several floors of New York’s New Museum, interrupting the architecture with a gesture towards playfulness (though the slide was much too steep and dangerous to actually utilize). While Höller has created many prominent museum installations over the past two decades, it’s surprising to learn that he has a Ph.D. in agricultural science and is an expert on insects’ olfactory communication strategies. He left his research in 1994 to focus on his art.

Gagosian Gallery at Frieze New York, 2014


Gagosian Gallery, 2014


New Museum, New York, 2011


New Museum, New York, 2011


New Museum, New York, 2011


New Museum, New York, 2011

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