• Art That’s Big Because it Needs To be Big

    Date posted: June 26, 2014 Author: mauri
    Carsten Nicolai, Unidisplay, 2012. Courtesy of Musée d’Art Contemporain Montréal (MACM).

    Carsten Nicolai’s installation Unidsiplay presents the possibility of an infinite screen. Moving dynamically in an engulfing array of abstract shapes, the viewer is welcome to lose oneself within the screen. Sound familiar?


    Richard Serra, 2000, 2000. Weatherproof steel. Courtesy of Dia:Beacon.

    Richard Serra, 2000, 2000. Weatherproof steel. Courtesy of Dia:Beacon.

    Richard Serra’s more recent corten steel works are designed to solicit a visceral reaction. Their sheer size and imagined weight serving to emotionally flatten the viewer while at the same time setting our survival instincts all a-tingle. Fight the urge to run.


    James Turrell, Roden Crater, 1979-2011. Courtesy of the artist.

    James Turrell, Roden Crater, 1979-2011. Courtesy of the artist.

    James Turrell’s Roden Crater presents a viewing experience not only massive in scale and a long time in the making, but an experience that serves to create a relationship between the viewer and the passing of heavenly bodies. Plus, it’s in the middle of the desert. Road trip, anyone?


    Carsten Höller, Vitra Slide Tower, 2014. Courtesy the artist

    Carsten Höller, Vitra Slide Tower, 2014. Courtesy the artist.

    Carsten Holler has long been a fan of weightlessness. He has installed slides in many of his exhibitions and has gone so far as to present an apartment building model where slides are the main form of transportation from top to bottom. This new towering outdoor slide work looks very inviting and almost too playful.


    Ann Hamilton, The event of a thread, 2012. Photo Credit: Kemi Ilesanmi. Courtesy of the artist.

    Ann Hamilton, The event of a thread, 2012. Photo Credit: Kemi Ilesanmi. Courtesy of the artist.

    Ann Hamilton knows a little something about fun art as well. Let’s not forget how mesmerizing recent work at the Armory was. The gorgeous shimmering of this giant white veil compounded by our own back-and-forth motion as we enjoyed the swing left us speechless. We still have goosebumps.

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