New Carsten Höller show lets visitors take a SLIDE in and out of the Hayward Gallery

Date
31 March 2015

Merging the fun of the playground with the beauty and cerebral qualities of art, a slide will transport visitors to the Hayward Gallery entrance this summer thanks to the forthcoming Carsten Höller show, Decision.

The exhibition, which opens in June, will feature the artist’s iconic Fly Agaric mushrooms alongside specially commissioned slides that take visitors from the gallery’s pyramid ceiling to the entrance level, in a similar piece to the artist’s brilliant Tate Turbine Hall commission Test Site back in 2007.

We’ll also see the new Moving Beds piece – two robot beds that will mirror each other as the scuttle around the space. The title of the show reflects its focus on “decision-making” according to the gallery. It says: “Visitors 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.”

And if one set of slides wasn’t enough, a final set will allow visitors to take an unconventional exit from the show in the shape of 2015’s Isomeric Slides, which Carsten says are for “experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness.”

Above

Mock up for Carsten Höller, Isomeric Slides, 2015 © 2015 Carsten Höller. Courtesy the artist and LUMA Foundation

Above

Carsten Höller,
Half Mirror Room, 2008
© 2015 Carsten Höller. Courtesy the artist and Kunsthaus Bregenz
Photo © Markus Trettner

Above

Carsten Höller
Carousel Mirror, 2006
© 2015 Carsten Höller. Courtesy Monsoon Collection and Gagosian Gallery
Photo © Attilio Maranzano

Above

Carsten Höller
Phi Wall II, 2002
© 2015 Carsten Höller. Courtesy the artist Photo © Färgfabriken Stockholm

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Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

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