Galerie Dennis Cooper presents … Carsten Höller

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Two Roaming Beds, 2015

‘Carsten Höller holds a doctorate in biology, and he uses his training as a scientist in his work as an artist, concentrating particularly on the nature of human relationships. Viewer participation is the key to all of Höller’s sculptures, but it is less an end in itself than a vehicle to informally test the artist’s theories concerning human perception and physiological reactions. Equal parts scientific experiment and sensual encounter, Höller’s works are most frequently devoted to his singular obsession—chemically analyzing the nature of human emotions.

‘His artistic work often explores theories of evolution that regard human sentiments, such as love and happiness, primarily as strategies for the successful reproduction of genetic material and he often, in a rather playful way, observes the human being as an animal amongst other animals. In the early 1990s, he invented a number of objects aimed at the products of unfettered reproductive instincts – that is to say, at children. This included, for example, a bicycle which exploded at the first push of the pedal.

‘“I’m interested in the idea of the self-experiment, including the project of life as an experiment on one’s self,” Höller says. In a way, he has moved from studying the communication between insects by scent — his former specialty — to observing the reactions of the public, and himself, to his own extraordinary projects.’ — Martin Gayford, Bloomberg.com

 

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Extras

Meet the artist: Carsten Höller

Carsten Höller introduces ‘Left/Right Slide’

Curator on New Museum’s “Carsten Holler: Experience”

 

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Further

 

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Interview

 

Why did you leave science for art?

There was an interest in art that was growing, and also a frustration with science that was growing.

I could see how my life would continue if I stayed in science: become a professor, take over a faculty. I thought ‘it’s time to move on’. There was an artists’ bar in front of my apartment in Kiel, and I used to go there after work sometimes and have a beer, and I got to know some people, and they gave me some things to read. I was very hungry for everything about contemporary art. I read for a few years before I seriously started to do anything.

You recently said of science: “It feels like a different life now.” But so much of your art seems related to science. You’ve said that “the real material I work with is people’s experience” and you think of life as “an experiment on oneself”.

Subjective personal experience in science is a no-no. In starting to make art, I wanted to bring in what had been forbidden.

With slides and upside-down glasses, you’re altering people’s perspectives on the world—as experiments?

Some of my pieces are manipulative. I had a slide in Boston in 2003 at the ICA and we said to people “we’ll give you $100 if you come down without smiling”, and they just couldn’t do it. If you see the world upside down, it’s going to be upside down. There’s no way you can correct it unless you close your eyes and imagine how it was before. You subject yourself to the influence and you see what it does with you. It’s a tool that you can use to manipulate the way you perceive the outside world, and yourself in it.

In his account of staying overnight in the Guggenheim in Revolving Hotel Room, critic Jerry Saltz wrote: “The Guggenheim, where I’d been a thousand times, looked utterly new to me.” He compared it to having sex with the museum.

I liked his piece. It was funny. It was ideal in the Guggenheim because the Guggenheim is already like a spiral. To lie in bed and revolve in this spiral creates a specific confusion that can be productive. Many works of mine are confusing, in that they take away something that you take for granted and then confront you with a completely new situation, and you have to find a way to deal with it. Sleeping in a museum—I didn’t see the sexual side of it. But I do have that feeling he had in the moments when I’m waking up. If it’s a good day, it takes ten minutes; I really like this moment. Everything is still in flux. To wake up with art—and architecture, as at the Guggenheim—is the ideal situation. The art you have closest to the bed is the most important.

How is Revolving Hotel Room different at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen?

There are fantastic Rubens and Bosch paintings, and you could see them at night, alone, with a flashlight. These masterpieces were not made to be presented in the light we show them in. There was no electric light when they were painted.

At the Guggenheim, that piece was part of an exhibition of artists associated with relational aesthetics, such as Maurizio Cattelan. While your show is at the New Museum, Cattelan’s show opens at the Guggenheim, in November. In the 1990s, he cloned an exhibition of yours. How do you feel about the term “relational aesthetics”?

It made its way into the discussion, so there is some truth to it. But I don’t think anybody really identifies with it. I don’t know anybody who says: “I’m a relational-aesthetics artist.” I wouldn’t say it. Some of my works have to do with what [curator and critic] Nicolas Bourriaud describes in his book [of the same name], but most of them are based on personal experience, and not so much on some form of exchange with other people. It’s really about the relationship you have to yourself, and I don’t think that’s what Nicolas meant.

For your exhibition “Soma”, at Hamburger Bahnhof last year, visitors paid E1,000 to stay overnight above a space occupied by 12 castrated reindeer, 24 canaries, eight mice and two flies. The reindeer were fed a special mushroom, which potentially made their urine hallucinogenic.

That was my most scientific show. The whole set-up is a straightforward scientific one: two identical situations. The space was divided in two, and you had six reindeers on one side and six reindeers on the other side and so forth. The scientific question would be: if you keep this as similar as possible on these two sides, if you add only one factor, and you observe a change in the side where you added this factor, then it means this factor would produce this effect. In science, these are called ceteris paribus conditions: it means that in the future, if you repeat a set-up like this one and you apply the same factor, you would get the same result. People who came there weren’t only spectators. They were also experimenters.

You share a house in Ghana with artist Marcel Odenbach. How did you become interested in Africa?

I have the house in Ghana, and I travel often to central Africa, to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I’m a big fan of the music, and I’m working with a Swedish film director on a film about the music there. The first time I went to Africa, I was 25 and I went to Benin to visit a friend. I was completely unprepared, and I thought about how there are a number of things in our culture where we have agreed about how we should behave or think about some things, and then there are other ways of doing it that are absolutely fascinating. In some cultures, where people are comparatively unhappy, the amount of effort that is made in order to create a perfectly designed environment is high. So there seems to be a correlation between those things. It has to do with how your persona relates to what is around you. And that seems to be quite different in the west African countries, but also in Congo, Kinshasa. We have a great deal to learn from that.

How do you spend your time in Ghana?

I go there to conceive a show, or write, or read. It’s very good for that. You are a bit cut off there. The internet is slow. Mostly I am there in the winter.

Can there really be a “pure language of contemporary art”? Isn’t everything culturally inflected?

My exhibitions are an attempt to bring out the pure language of contemporary art by making the cultural differences obvious. Subtract one thing and what remains is a pure form. I really believe there is something that is specific to contemporary art. It’s hard to speak about—it has to do with a certain simultaneousness. It’s something that goes like a gunshot, bullets flying around. If it’s good, it can hit you in a simultaneous way.

 

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Show

Y, 2003
960 lightbulbs, aluminium, wood, cables, electronic circuitry, light signs, mirrors
Overall Installation: approx. 1300 x 850 x 320 cm

 

7.8 (Reduced Reality App), 2020
The AR experience 7.8 (Reduced Reality App) makes your phone flicker, vibrate and sound at 7.8 Hz, a frequency that stimulates brain waves and, after a while, may induce hallucinations.

 

Dice, 2014
A large scale fibreglass dice with tunnels on each dot connecting to a spherical void inside.

 

Forte dei Marmi Ballerina, 2007
117,5 x 149 cm C-Prints mounted on aluminum

 

Decimal Clock, 2018
This 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.

 

Mirror Carousel, 2005

 

Revolving Hotel Room, 2008
Chairs, table, bed, wardrobe, light bulbs, steel construction, 4 glass platforms, engine approx. 600 x 600 cm, 180 cm (incl. furniture)
‘The Revolving Hotel Room is a complete hotel room, including a bedside table and mini-bar, mounted on four revolving discs. While the exhibition is running visitors will be able to book into this exclusive room with its constantly changing view. Guests in the Revolving Hotel Room have twenty-four-hour access to the entire museum.’

 

Mushroom Suitcase, 2008
Hallucinogenic mushrooms revolve on mechanical stands hooked up to silver metal suitcases.

 

Double Light Corner, 2011
Double Light Corner uses a sequence of flashing lights to give the viewer the sensation that the space around them is flipping back and forth.

 

Test Site, 2008
Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London

 

Flying Machine, 1996
The flying machine involves being suspended in harnesses on the Hayward balcony where you will be laughed at by other visitors, as well as every passing child on a bus.

 

Animal Group, 2011
bi-resin, polyvinyl, polyurethane foam and polyester resin, glass eyes, horns

 

Pill Clock, 2011
Pill Clock has pills dropping on to the floor every three seconds. Like the fly agaric mushroom, the pills are red and white, suggesting potential parallels between the two. There is a water fountain next to the pile that facilitates the consumption of a pill if you so wish.

 

Spheres, 2001

 

Killing Children I, 1992
Killing Children II, 1992
The jerry can is filled with gas; if one rides the tricycle, the match burns the wick.

 

Singing Canaries Mobile, 2009
An enormous mobile composed of seven birdcages, complete with live singing canaries.

 

Székely, 2010
Höller made a scale model of the 1958 Cité des Jeux playground in L’Hay-les-Roses, France and turned it over to two mice.

 

Giant Psycho Tank, 1999
Höller’s Giant Psycho Tank probably induces more anxiety for most visitors than the comparatively risky slide, because total nudity is strongly recommended. A big, enclosed, semitranslucent tank contains salty water a few inches deep. You climb up some stairs, disrobe and shower, while keenly aware that you (or parts of you, as in your lower legs) can be observed from the outside as you stand behind a door which has an open space at its bottom.

 

The Snow Show, 2006
A 100-foot by 100-foot by 4-foot-high square plinth was built out of snow. When approached from the ground, our project appeared to be a simple, raised square of snow. A kind of “rabbit hole” was cut into the top of the plinth. One slid down the hole through a curving chute and arrived at the bottom of a deep well. A series of curving paths led from the bottom up to the top. As an alternative, a wooden ladder allowed people to climb back up to the top.

 

Seven Sliding Doors Corridor, 2003
The doors are installed at evenly-spaced intervals in a corridor-like space and are connected to motion sensors that cause them to slide open when someone approaches and close shut when the person moves away. As a result, the movements of viewers alternately break and bind the visual limits of the space, which can be entered from either end of the corridor, increasing the likelihood of unexpected encounters as the doors open and close.

 

Hypothèse de Grue, 2013
Rising high in the middle of the room and vaguely dragon-shaped, a white metallic structure containing a smoke machine releases a deep, blurring fog, filled – according to a large wall caption that is impossible to miss before entering the room – with unspecified neurostimulants.

 

Swinging Corridor, 2016
Swinging Corridor  is a structure conceived to interrogate the individual’s ability to perceive the position of his or her own body in space (proprioception). For those inside the suspended structure, an almost imperceptible shivering of the walls and the ceiling influences their sense of balance and their proprioception, as they tend to rely on visual clues to position themselves in space – one unconsciously sways with the movements of the Swinging Corridor.

 

Elevator Bed, 2010
The fantasy of sleeping in the museum prompted Carsten Höller to conceive Rotating Hotel Room in 2008 and install it at the Guggenheim Museum (New York) in the fall of that same year. Elevator Bed comes as a sequel of the same concept: visitors are invited to book a night in this larger-than-life round bed equipped with all the comforts of a luxury hotel room. The bed also rotates and goes up and down, rising up to 3.5 metres above ground, enabling the guests to experience the rest of the exhibition from a different viewpoint. During the day, the bed remains at floor level as a sculpture.
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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I forgot to sing the latest Play Therapy stint’s praises yesterday, but it was the roller coaster/dark ride of my weekend’s otherwise so-so amusement parkness. Ooh, almost finished with your story! I’m very happy to hear that you guys have sorted out the best possible situation for your dad. He sounds like he’s being really strong and tough in the most ultimately testing circumstance. All respect to him, and to you too, my dear and tough friend. It obviously runs in your family. Biggest hugs. Love, me. ** Tosh Berman, Thank you, Tosh. ** David Ehrenstein, Palate cleanser is great way to describe her, her stuff. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein adds to the Stein fray of yesterday aka this stylised audio recording of a letter she wrote to Paul Bowles. ** David, Hi. I’m very, very sorry about your ex-partner. A few of my exes died horribly young as well. Their ghosts own big parts of me. He looked amazing, thank you, man, and hang in there. ** Sypha, I have a friend here in Paris who’s exactly the same as you about Batman movies. If you even liked ‘Batman vs. Superman’ then you are a true fellow addict of your genre. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Ha ha, and we were all set to go to The Real McCoy yesterday only to discover that it’s closed on Mondays! And now Zac leaves town today for a week, so either I’ll find another sucker to go with me in the next day or, or I’ll venture out solo. It’s run by hardcore Trumpers, so it would be good to have some company. Has there never been a TV series about a detective who never solves his cases? Because that sounds like the makings a viral, supercool hit show to me, but then I don’t watch TV, and it probably sounds more like the makings of a Nouvelle Vague film series. Love turning every macho XXL top porn star and escort’s penis into a bean and cheese burrito, G. ** Misanthrope, Don’t we all, George, don’t we all. Your luck does seem, mm, oddly stacked against you. You need your chakras realigned or something. Happy that your nose is starting to behave. Dude, totally, I have to be bedridden or screaming in agony before I’ll consult a doctor. Otherwise, I’m of the opinion that my body will figure out a way to repair itself somehow. ** L@rst, Hey. I liked your poems and the renditions even too! Sweet. I’m going to try to rest of the compilation’s contents. Yeah, interesting about her vis-a=-vis Hemingway, no? Feather in her cap. ** Steve Erickson, Nope, haven’t heard it, but, duh, I will. Slurp. I want to see ‘TWPITW’. Even though it seems like the new ‘Drive My Car’ aka the new buzzy critical darling of the moment, which rarely bodes well. I’m finally seeing ‘DMC’ this week, however. It’s the assigned film in my next Zoom Book Club thing. ** LC, Hi! Oh, lucky you! I didn’t know the whole area around it was so exciting. I really have to get there. I think it’s (long) drivable voyage from LA maybe. Road trip next time I’m there. Here in France we have the famous Lascaux cave where there are all the early cave paintings and stuff. And because it’s so fragile, they built an exact fake replica of the cave right next to it that you can go inside. I was only sort of interested in Lascaux until they did that, but now I’m dying to go explore the fake version, me being a big amusement park fanatic. So, that’s my next France road trip. So true about the opening and closing of ‘WotW’. How’s post-cave like for you? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. The whole book is stellar. Ha ha, thanks for being so understanding of my ‘Moonfall’ needs. I suspect it’s going bomb here just like it has in the US, so I’ll see it in the next week before it unceremoniously exits the IMAX theaters. Wow, you’re really going to tackle Bresson. Dude, all my respect to you plus greediness to read what you come up with. I assume you know all the Bresson books out there as far as reference material goes. I’m excited for you, or at least for me! My Monday was okay. Uh, I had a meet up about the Haunt/videogame project. Ate astounding olive bread at Paris’s best boulangerie. Intended to go to the American junk food store, but it was closed. Very excitedly got an advance copy of John Waters’ new/first upcoming novel in the mail. So not so bad. Did Tuesday advance your interests and drop some acid in your pleasure center? ** Right. I think because I’m going through serious amusement park withdrawals due to all the reachable parks being closed for the winter months, I decided to fill my galerie with Carsten Holler whose work is kind of the Six Flags of contemporary art. Have fun maybe, and see you tomorrow.