About
Carsten Höller applies his training as a scientist to his work as an artist, concentrating particularly on the nature of human relationships. Major installations include Flying Machine (1996), an interactive work in which viewers are strapped into a harness and hoisted through the air; Test Site (2006), a series of giant slides installed in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall; Amusement Park (2006), a large installation at MASS MoCA of full-sized carnival midway rides operating at dramatically slowed speeds; The Double Club (2008–09), a work designed to create a dialogue between Congolese and Western culture in the form of a London bar, restaurant, and nightclub; and Upside-Down Goggles (2009–11), an ongoing participatory experiment with vision distortion through goggles. Höller’s Revolving Hotel Room, an installation that became a fully operational hotel room by night, was featured in the exhibition theanyspacewhatever at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008–09).
Höller was born in 1961 in Brussels to German parents. Major exhibitions and solo presentations include the 50th Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2003); One Day One Day, Färgfabriken, Stockholm (2003); 7th Biennale de Lyon, France (2003); Half Fiction, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2003); 7,8 Hz, Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2004); Une exposition à Marseille, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2004); 51st Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2005); Test Site, Tate Modern, London (2006); Amusement Park, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2006); Carrousel, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008); The Double Club, Fondazione Prada, London (2008); 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008); Double Slide, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2009); 53rd Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2009); 8th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2010); Divided Divided, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2010); Soma, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010); Double Carousel with Zöllner Stripes, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2011); Experience, New Museum, New York (2011); 11th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013); LEBEN, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2014); 8th Berlin Biennale (2014); 10th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2014); Golden Mirror Carousel, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2014–15); 56th Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2015); Decision, Hayward Gallery, London (2015); Doubt, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy (2016); Video Retrospective with Two Light Machines, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium (2016); Y, Centro Botín, Santander, Spain (2017); and Sunday, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2019). The Slide at the ArcelorMittal Orbit (2016), Höller’s commissioned addition to Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit (2012), is permanently installed at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London; and his site-specific Aventura Slide Tower (2018) can be experienced at the Aventura Mall, Florida
Höller lives and works in Stockholm and Biriwa, Ghana.
Photo: James Veysey/Camera Press/Redux
#CarstenHoller
Exhibitions
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
FIAC Online 2021
Printemps oublié
March 2–12, 2021
Gagosian is pleased to present Printemps oublié for the first online edition of FIAC. This curated presentation reflects the dual character of springtime as a reminder of past trials and the harbinger of a vibrant new season to come.
All the artworks will appear on the Gagosian website and a rotating selection will appear in the inaugural FIAC Online Viewing Rooms, from March 4 to 7.
Jeff Koons, Bluebird Planter, 2010–16 © Jeff Koons
New Release
Infinite Canvas
A Film by Ryan McGinley featuring Carsten Höller
Last year, seven artists, including Carsten Höller, led an augmented reality (AR) project in Apple Stores around the world. In collaboration with Apple and the New Museum, this project became [AR]T, a series of interactive AR installations. A new documentary directed by Ryan McGinley, available to watch on Apple TV, highlights the work of each artist and chronicles how they pushed the boundaries of their work to explore the uncharted territory of augmented reality art.
View with Carsten Höller’s augmented reality software Through (2019), which takes viewers through a portal into a world with no perspective
Exhibition
Broadcast
Alternate Meanings in Film and Video
You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
—Timothy Leary
Gagosian is pleased to present Broadcast: Alternate Meanings in Film and Video, an online exhibition of artists’ films and videos viewable exclusively on gagosian.com. The exhibition will be organized into a series of “chapters,” each lasting two weeks. The first chapter begins on Tuesday, May 19, 2020.
Broadcast: Alternate Meanings in Film and Video employs the innate immediacy of time-based art to spark reflection on the here and now, taking the words of famed psychologist and countercultural icon Timothy Leary as its starting point.
Adam McEwen, Escape from New York, 2014 (still from “Battery Tunnel”) © Adam McEwen
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Dyr i kunsten
March 21, 2020–January 10, 2021
Arken Museum, Ishoj, Denmark
uk.arken.dk
Dyr i kunsten, or Animals in Art, features sculpture, installations, video, photography, and paintings by a wide array of international artists whose work explores the ways that humans study, categorize, live with, and use animals and how we thus attempt to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. Work by Douglas Gordon, Damien Hirst, and Carsten Höller is included.
Installation view, Dyr i kunsten, Arken Museum, Ishoj, Denmark, May 26, 2020–January 10, 2021. Artwork © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2020. Photo: David Stjernholm
Closed
Carsten Höller
Reproduction
September 28, 2019–April 13, 2020
Copenhagen Contemporary
copenhagencontemporary.org
In this exhibition Carsten Höller examines the theme of reproduction, adopting an approach that is at once scientific and artistic. The museum is transformed into a large, biology-based playscape where, for example, the visitors are encouraged to crawl through the pips of a die, and where slow-moving merry-go-rounds and corridors of mirrors affect their sensory perceptions.
Carsten Höller, Gartenkinder, 2014 © Carsten Höller. Photo: Mike Bruce
Closed
Carsten Höller
Behaviour
September 26, 2019–February 23, 2020
Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark
kunsten.dk
Carsten Höller’s work aims to involve its viewers both physically and mentally, often arriving at an intersection between play, science, and art. In Behaviour, visitors experience contact with artwork that enables disruption or transformation of the way they view their surroundings via light, sound, smell, mirror images, and other means.
Carsten Höller, Upside-Down Goggles, 1994– © Carsten Höller. Photo: Elzbieta Bialkowska
Closed
Carsten Höller in
Expanded
May 10–November 24, 2019
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice
www.primeirapedra.com
Expanded features three newly commissioned works in stone by Marina Abramović, Carsten Höller, and Julião Sarmento. Höller presents a large-scale die made of Portuguese limestone based on his 2014 sculpture Dice (White Body, Black Dots). The exhibition is part of Primeira Pedra (First Stone), an experimental international research program that explores the potential of Portuguese stone. The project is managed by experimentadesign and cofunded by the EU.
Carsten Höller, Dice (Limestone), 2019 (in progress) © Carsten Höller. Photo: Ricardo Gonçalves