SOUTHBANK CENTRE ANNOUNCES ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS AND EXPERIMENTAL EXHIBITIONS TO DATE AT HAYWARD GALLERY – A MAJOR SURVEY OF CARSTEN HÖLLER Carsten Höller: Decision Hayward Gallery Southbank Centre 10 June – 6 September 2015 (Press View: Tuesday 9 June 2015, 10am – 1pm) • • • •
Especially-‐commissioned slides that will allow courageous visitors to travel from the Hayward Gallery’s iconic glass pyramid ceiling to Gallery entrance level Moving Beds (2015), a new work comprised of two robotic beds which will mirror each other's movements as they roam the galleries A wide range of new and ambitious works including a large installation with Höller’s signature Fly Agaric mushrooms Two Flying Machines that will allow visitors to ‘lift off’ over the Hayward Gallery’s iconic sculpture terraces and ‘fly’ above Waterloo Bridge One of the highlights of Southbank Centre’s Summer programme
• This major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery will present a wide range of Höller’s works from newly-‐made pieces that have been especially commissioned, to key early artworks like The Pinocchio Effect (1994) and Upside Down Goggles (1994-‐ongoing). It will bring together sculptures, videos, installations and light works that are designed to profoundly re-‐orientate our awareness of time and space. Decision will immerse its visitors in a series of experimental environments, reflecting Höller’s wide-‐ranging interest in the nature of consciousness. Many of the works in the exhibition aim to transform the visitors’ physical and mental experience in ways that lead them to question their habitual perceptions. Often participatory or immersive, these works highlight an individual response; as Höller himself has remarked: “the real material I am working with is people’s experience.” As indicated by its title, decision-‐making will be a focus of the exhibition. Visitors to the Hayward Gallery show will constantly need to reflect on the choices and decisions they make, beginning with how they enter the gallery: two separate entrances will be available, each providing a different route through the first part of the exhibition. Pill Clock (2011-‐15), a ceiling-‐mounted timepiece that will drop over one million pills onto the gallery floor during the course of the exhibition, poses a different kind of conundrum for visitors: the installation includes a drinking fountain for those visitors who decide to take one of the pills and face its unknown effects. Other highlights of the show include Flying Mushrooms (2015), a new large-‐scale work of an upside-‐down mobile with giant psychedelic mushrooms; Moving Beds (2015), a pair of robotic beds that restlessly roam the
galleries like ‘insomniac twins’; Flying Machines (2008/2015) installed on one of the Hayward’s outdoor terraces, opposite Waterloo Bridge, offering visitors the sensation of soaring above city traffic; whilst The Pinocchio Effect (1994) will, through an ingenious use of a simple technology, give visitors the uncanny sensation that their nose is growing. Throughout the exhibition, recurring motifs of doubles, twins, forking paths and mirrored reflections will lead visitors to question how they go about choosing between things that on the surface, at least, seem almost identical. The exhibition will climax by confronting visitors with a final choice between several dramatic ways to exit Hayward Gallery, including climbing up through the Gallery’s glass pyramid roof lights and descending via Höller’s new Isomeric Slides (2015). Built onto the gallery’s exterior wall, these sinuous slides will constitute a graceful sculptural installation whilst at the same time, as the artist notes, the work will be a device for ‘experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness.’ Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery and exhibition curator, says: “Carsten Höller is truly one of the world’s most thought-‐provoking and profoundly playful artists, with a sharp and mischievous intelligence bent on turning our ‘normal’ view of things upside-‐down. Decision will ask visitors to make choices, but also, more importantly, to embrace a kind of double vision that takes in competing points of view, and embodies what Höller calls a state of ‘active uncertainty’ – a frame of mind conducive to entertaining new possibilities.” Jude Kelly, Artistic Director, Southbank Centre, said: “Höller is an exceptional artist, whose playful and daring work will transform the inside and outside of the Hayward Gallery. He creates spaces and situations which question familiar forms of perception and we're delighted that thousands of people will be able to experience his fun-‐filled and thoughtful installations, as one of the highlights of our programme this summer." The exhibition is curated by Hayward Gallery Director Ralph Rugoff; and it is one of the main highlights of Southbank Centre’s Summer programme. Carsten Höller: Decision will be the last exhibition in the Hayward Gallery before the Gallery closes (with the Queen Elizabeth Hall) for essential repair and maintenance. Exhibition Catalogue Carsten Höller: Decision will be accompanied by two catalogues; the first is a compilation of commissioned short stories on decision-‐making, and features some of today’s leading young fiction writers Naomi Aldermen, Jenni Fagan, Deborah Levy, Hamilton Morris, Helen Oyeyemi and Ali Smith. The second catalogue will incorporate a photographic record of the exhibition taken by two separate photographers and will also feature an extensive interview with the artist by Ralph Rugoff. For press information contact: Helena Zedig, Deputy Head of Press:
[email protected] on 020 7921 0847 or 07803 596587 Or Filipa Mendes, Press Officer:
[email protected] on 020 7921 0672 or 07531643279 Notes to editors: Listings details: Carsten Höller: Decision Hayward Gallery, 10 June – 6 September 2015 Visitor information and tickets: www.southbankcentre.co.uk Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX Prices (inc. Gift Aid) Supporter Standard £15.00
Supporter Seniors 60+ Supporter Students/universal credit/pension credit Supporter Young People 12 – 18 Under 12s Southbank Centre Members: Supporter Circles Opening times: Monday 12 noon – 6pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday 11am – 7pm Thursday and Friday 11am – 8pm About Carsten Höller:
£13.00 £11.00 10.00 Free Free Free
Trained as an agricultural scientist, Carsten Höller has been making art and showing internationally since the early 1990s. Over the past two decades his work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, including solo shows at Fondazione Prada, Milan (2000), the ICA Boston (2003), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010), Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2011), New Museum, New York (2011) and Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary–Augarten, Vienna, Austria (2014). In 2005, he represented Sweden at the 51st Biennale di Venezia (with Miriam Bäckström). In 2006, he presented his slide installation Test Site at the Tate Modern, and in November 2008, his Double Club installation – an art work that was simultaneously a bar, restaurant and dance club – opened for seven months in London. In 2014, Vitra Slide Tower, Höller’s first freestanding slide, was inaugurated at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Hayward Gallery: Hayward Gallery has a long history of presenting work by the world's most adventurous and innovative artists. Opened by Her Majesty, The Queen in 1968, the gallery is one of the few remaining buildings of its style. It was designed by a group of young architects, including Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron. Hayward Gallery is named after the late Sir Isaac Hayward, the former leader of the London County Council. Hayward Gallery has gained an international reputation for staging major solo shows by both emerging and established artists and dynamic group exhibitions in its 46 year history. Key exhibitions throughout Hayward Gallery’s history have included those by Martin Creed, Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller, Anish Kapoor, Rene Magritte, Frances Bacon and David Shrigley, as well as influential group exhibitions such as Africa Remix, Light Show, The Human Factor and Psycho Buildings. Southbank Centre: Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, comprising three iconic buildings (Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery) and occupying a 21-‐acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Building on this rich heritage, Southbank Centre offers an extensive artistic and cultural programme including annual and one-‐off themed festivals and classical and contemporary music, performance, dance, visual art and literature and spoken word events throughout the year. www.southbankcentre.co.uk Like Hayward Gallery on facebook.com/haywardgallery Follow @southbankcentre and @haywardgallery